MCRAE’S LAST HURRAH IN WALES
Despite myriad WRC wins afterwards, Mcrae’s last GB triumph was in 1997. By David Evans
At the time it was almost inconceivable that this would be Colin Mcrae’s last win on his home round of the World Rally Championship. How could it be? In 1997, the Flying Scotsman was at the height of his power and apparently winning for fun.
But 20 years ago, Mcrae celebrated his final RAC Rally win. He’d done three on the bounce – admittedly interrupted by Armin Schwarz’s non-championship win in 1996 (Mcrae didn’t enter) – and hadn’t looked seriously troubled by anybody on his way to that famous hat-trick.
The most serious threat in 1997 came from the Briton who would take on the home hero mantle and win the next three: Richard Burns.
Two decades ago, Burnsie was coming onto Mcrae’s radar as a serious threat, not that he’d have admitted as much. But on the Cheltenham-based event, Burns landed some serious shots and, briefly, had his Subaru-driving rival on the ropes.
Two decades ago, the RAC was following its then-traditional format of a Sunday morning start and Tuesday afternoon finish. The day one spectator stages were dispatched without drama, but all that changed first thing Monday morning. The run up to mid-wales was broken up by an early morning dash through the Radnor test. Just over the border, the 10-miler climbed to around 2000 feet and, running at just after 0700hrs on a late November morning, daybreak arrived shrouded in fog.
Fog was Mcrae’s nemesis. His pacenotes were written with sight and speed in mind; compromised conditions hit the Scot harder than most things.
Mcrae’s co-driver Nicky Grist remembers that stage well. “If there was a kink in the road and Colin could see straight through it, he wouldn’t necessarily put it into the notes,” he says. “That was a problem in the fog…”
Conversely, Burns’ notes were incredibly detailed, describing the road ahead in detail. Mcrae was lost, quite literally.
“Colin was getting really frustrated,” says Grist. “He just couldn’t see and then he started trying to drive with the lights on, then off, then on. In the end, I said: ‘Leave the lights off and concentrate on getting us to the end of the stage!’”
Mcrae followed the advice, but was livid at the end of the test. And that was before he discovered he’d dropped a minute and a half to RB.
Burns had been sublime, catching and passing Didier Auriol’s Toyota. At the end of the stage, the Frenchman jumped out of his factory Corolla and opened Burns’ door – congratulating the Mitsubishi star on being the first man ever to catch him on a stage when he was running without problems.
A fuming Mcrae took some calming down as he and Grist journeyed north. The good news for Colin was that the next stage was Hafren, the very same test where he retook the lead on his way to an RAC win and the 1995 World Rally Championship.
The mood was still dark at the start of the stage. Eighth overall and 1m19s off the lead, Mcrae reckoned he’d lost interest. What was the point?
Nothing less than a win would do for him to take the championship, and what were the chances of that?
Did anybody really believe that? Giving Mcrae an on-song Subaru and 25 miles of Hafren is like handing Pablo Picasso a paintbrush and a piece of paper and telling him to get on with it.
Mcrae produced a masterpiece of a drive, tearing through the woods to take 28 seconds out of everybody. It would have been more had he not spun halfway through. Pantperthog, Dyfi, Gartheiniog went the same way. A lack of visibility – this time caused by a
Concentrate on getting us to the end of the stage” Nicky Grist
misted up windscreen – meant he dropped a second to Burns, whose lead had been slashed by a minute and four seconds in four stages.
By now, even Burns had accepted his fate and expected the Impreza WRC97 to be leading his Carisma GT back to Cheltenham that night. In the end, they went in tied on time, partly thanks to a botched rear suspension change, which cost Burns a 10-second penalty.
So, to South Wales for one last blast. St Gwynno opened proceedings, where half-light and full fog returned to haunt Mcrae. This time he ‘only’ dropped 17s to his rival and immediately pulled three of those back on the following Tyle stage.
In those days, the final day of a WRC still meant something in terms of mileage and the top two Brits set about 23 miles of Rhondda with a minute and a half in hand over the best of the rest. This one was about home rule.
Halfway through and disaster struck for Burns. He clipped a stone and the front-right Michelin on his Mitsubishi went flat, forcing him and Robert Reid to stop and change. Gutted didn’t come close. And fourth was zero consolation.
Unaware of his rival’s problem, Mcrae pressed on and finished the stage fully 40 seconds quicker than his nearest rival. Two minutes in the lead and with only four meaningful stages remaining, the Subaru star’s side of the deal was done. And he would duly head Finland’s Juha Kankkunen over the ramp with a lead of close to three minutes.
In doing so, Mcrae became the first Briton to win the RAC three times and the first driver to complete a hat-trick on Britain’s round of the world championship since Timo Makinen in 1975.
But none of that really mattered. In terms of the score across the spread of the season, Mcrae had come up short by the most painful of margins: a single point. Tommi Makinen had to finish sixth to secure a successful defence of his 1996 title. And he did that. Just.
Mitsubishi’s flying Finn had been well and truly grounded by the ’flu, but he managed to do just about enough to stay on the road and in the hunt.
Subaru and Mcrae had hoped Kenneth Eriksson might have been able to intervene, possibly even Piero Liatti as well. But when the Swede’s engine failed on stage one (something of a running theme through Subaru’s 1997 season) and the Italian upended his car in Hafren, Mcrae was on his own.
But still, we told ourselves, there would be another year. And another. And there was. But there wouldn’t be another Mcrae win on the RAC. Unbeknown to the masses, an era had ended with glorious success, and global failure. ■