WHEN NICKY GRIST CONQUERED THE STAGES IN BRITAIN
Twenty-five years on Nicky grist recalls a dream rac rally result
The 1993 Network Q RAC Rally was my first ever World Rally Championship win at home. It’s an event I’ll never forget and a result I’ll cherish forever.
I was competing with Juha Kankkunen in the Toyota Castrol World Rally Championship team. I’d started to work with him in the middle of the season, drafted in after his regular co-driver Juha Piironen suffered a brain haemorrhage in Argentina. After a brief recce we headed north to Tucuman for the start and first stage, which, remarkably, we were fastest on and here I was leading a WRC event for the first time. From that point on we never lost the lead and won that first event together and then won again in Australia some weeks later.
On the rally before the RAC, Juha had sewn up his fourth world title when we finished third in Spain. In all honesty, we didn’t even have to come to the RAC, but Juha told me: “Boyo, we’re going and we’re going to win this one for you.”
It was really cold on Sunday morning for the start out of Birmingham but there wasn’t any snow as the midlands were fairly clear. Sutton Park, the first stage, was in good shape and we were quickest. Juha was always good on the Sunday spectator stages.
Down the M54 to Weston Park and that was OK as well. On the remainder of the Sunday loop we went through Oulton Park, Tatton Park and Chatsworth, which had some snow on the high ground, and into Clumber, we started to get more and more snow at the side of the road as we went further north.
The final stage of the day was at MIRA, after which we were back to Birmingham with a slender 14-second lead. But we were all ready for an attack on Monday morning in Wales. That was where the rally would start in earnest.
Juha attacked in an attempt to catch everyone asleep. He was so, so impressive. The car control was exceptional. We started that stage at 0630hrs in the pitch black and he was on it from the word ‘go’. We took 13s out of everybody and a whopping 47 out of Colin Mcrae.
All of Britain was rooting for Colin Mcrae and Derek Ringer to win. They’d led the event for the previous two years, but fallen foul of Grizedale both times. A day on from Dyfnant and we’d be back into the Lakes – and Juha and I were as interested as anybody to see how our Scottish Subaru rivals would fare.
Monday was a difficult day in Wales. There wasn’t so much snow, but the ice was everywhere. In the trees, it was like an ice rink, but where the sun was – and it was a lovely sunny day – the grip wasn’t so bad. People talked of fearing a corner waiting for them in those conditions. I didn’t feel that with Juha. He was completely composed in the car. We clattered some logs in Dyfnant, but it was no bother.
By the end of day two and, after a series of really quick times, Colin was leading us by 21s as we left Wales and headed north on the M6 to the overnight halt in Lancaster. I knew this was going to be a real ding-dong battle.
Now for Grizedale… and Colin came through unscathed, still in the lead. The reward for that was to head further north and into Kielder, which Juha always called “Killer Kielder” but he did like the place and was not fazed by its reputation. This was where it got interesting. The ice was there, but now it was covered with fresh snow. And some more stages in the dark.
Colin and Derek’s challenge ended in Kershope, when a damaged radiator cooked the engine on their Impreza, once again their rally was curtailed early on.
We went with the narrow tyre for the rest of Kielder and, once again, Juha was superb. It was something natural for the Scandinavians to drive the car in these conditions. A friend of mine was spectating in one stage and he told me after the event, they couldn’t stand up on the road to walk on it, it was so icy. When the course cars came through, they were so, so slow and just trying to stay on the road. Then they heard the whistles from the marshals and this Celica rocketed into view, he said it was unbelievable.
We did fall foul of Kielder and a couple of punctures cost us two minutes. Suddenly Kenneth [Eriksson, Mitsubishi] was just half a minute behind. Pundershaw was the last stage of day three, starting just before 1900hrs. Juha got the hammer down and we took another big chunk out of everybody, and 49 seconds out of Eriksson, which gave us a reasonable buffer again.
One day to go and things were looking good.
The run back south to the finish was punctuated by a couple of spectator stages at Scunthorpe and one last run around Donington, where Juha drove sensibly to conserve the result. After that we were on the road to Birmingham for the finish around eight in the evening. Coming into Centenary Square was the most surreal feeling. There were these ceremonial trumpeters playing as we went over the ramp and such a big cheer from the crowd. It was amazing, such a fantastic feeling.
It was still absolutely freezing when Juha and I got out of the car and stood on the bonnet. I’d got the cork out of my champagne, sprayed it and enjoyed my first sip before he even got the top off his bottle! But that was pretty much all the celebrating for me. Juha had been competing at this level a long time and he went out to enjoy the moment with a big party, but I wasn’t so interested in that, I was starting out and was just happy to have a couple of beers.
And that was that. Birmingham might not have been one of the classic RAC venues like Chester or Harrogate, but it did mean I was only an hour and a quarter from home. Thursday morning, I was in the front door and back to normal life. In fact, I was probably on the golf course by mid-morning.
What a difference a day makes. ■