COLIN CLARK
“Rally GB is now a joy”
People have always asked me what my favourite rally on the calendar is and I’ve always had real trouble in answering this question. The easier question was always: ‘What’s your least favourite rally?’ And that was, until three years ago very easy to answer: Wales Rally GB.
If I had been told that I had to miss one event a year, it would have been a no-brainer. I’d have been far happier sunning myself on a far-away beach with a copy of Colin Mcrae’s biography than battling the overbearing, pompous, selfserving bureaucratic parochials who seemed hell-bent on ruining my every trip to Wales.
It’s fair to say, it was the only event where I ever felt distinctly unwelcome.
But what a transformation. The reinvigorated Wales Rally GB now stands right up there with my favourites. It’s not just the move up north that has rejuvenated what was a fading classic. More than that, it’s the team behind the event.
Ben Taylor, boss of the event, is a rare character. He’s a pocket dynamo, running around and taking responsibility for every aspect of what he rightly feels is his event. He wants to know what’s going on and he wants everyone involved in the rally to know he’s there, and accessible. I even saw him driving the shuttle bus across Brenig Dam on Sunday’s powerstage. A boss who mucks in and gets his hands and battered CAT boots dirty is a boss to be respected.
But perhaps more important even than the boss is the incredible team he has under him. I can honestly say there isn’t a department within the Wales Rally GB organising team that operates below par. From the stages teams, to the media office and everyone in between, they all work their socks off to deliver a level of professionalism that is a credit to them all.
But I really have to single out two people: Iain Campbell, the new clerk of the course being the first. Iain’s a quiet, dependable Scotsman who, in the decade or so I’ve know him, has proved himself to be entirely unflappable. He handles crisis and criticism with a cool, level head and is the perfect man to take the rally forward in coming years. The second? Route master extraordinaire Andrew Kellitt, who continues to over deliver in an increasingly demanding environment. These two gents are the backbone of a rally that is clearly going places.
However...all this hard work is continually in danger of being completely undone by a handful of people (“people” is being kind to them). What sort of moron lights a flare in a forest stage just before a car comes hurtling down the track? It’s madness on a mind-blowing scale. We need to rid our sport of this and weed out these idiots before something happens that means our sport is changed forever.
We have a fabulous event that is without doubt heading in the right direction. But all that hard work will count for nothing unless we get on top of these lunatics.