“Rally GB zip line video was remarkable”

Surreal didn’t come close to describing what was before us. Nervous chatter, launch instructions, and a countdown had given way to total, complete and utter silence. Nobody said a word. We just stood and watched; watched a car flying through the Snowdonia mountains.

If you’ve ever asked yourself the question: could a car go down the zip wire at Slate Mountain? Let me tell you… it can.

“Don’t worry,” says Wales Rally GB press officer Jonathan Gill, “Jack’s got it all under control.”

Jack is Jack Moriarty, son of Zip World owner Nick. Jack is the man who made all of this happen. He’s the one who did the physics, worked the numbers and decided it was a runner. Or a flier.

And it wasn’t half flying now. We’re on the first run at Zip World, it’s a kilometre long and gravity’s done it’s thing.

“A person would be doing about 70mph,” continues Gill, now slightly distracted. “I say, it is going rather fast now, isn’t it.”

Jack’s words from five minutes before rang louder and louder in my head.

“Getting it up there’s one thing,” he said. “Keeping it there’s another, and then stopping it at the bottom is probably the biggest challenge.” Probably the biggest challenge. Tell Jonny? Don’t tell Jonny? Tell him. Oops. As we watch the Ford Fiesta slew into a horrible-looking mid-air tank-slapper, it turns out my last sentence is not the one Gill was looking for.

Watching from a kilometre away, the crash is remarkably audible.

Undeterred, I press on. “Jack says not to worry, the car will just kiss the barrier at the bottom.” Gill frowns. “Is that what Jack calls a kiss?” Radio confirmation is delivered, the Fiesta had landed. And it’s in perfectly good order and ready for another go.

What Gill, Moriarty and co did at the Slate Mountain last month was quite remarkable. Good on them for trial and execution, both were worthy of the sort of viral response I have no doubt the resulting video has and will achieve. They deserve it. And to think this all came from a bit of bar talk between Zip World MD Sean Taylor and Gill.

And while I’m doing the congratulations, I must extend them to the organisers of Rally Finland – on every level. They delivered the commercial side of a WRC round superbly, identifying an absolute key market in Estonia and tweaked and tuned package deals with travel and accommodation to bring Ott Tanak’s people in. Beyond that, Finland demonstrated once again last month why it remains the benchmark event for both the sporting and financial side of our sport. Personally, I didn’t like the narrow roads, but they worked: last month’s average speed was 2.52mph slower than Kris Meeke’s 78.68mph record in 2016.

And, yes, Jyvaskyla is the perfect place to host a WRC round, with stages a stone’s throw away and the city centre even closer… but still, clerk of the course Kai Tarkiainen does it magnificently.