Colin McRae - A Tribute
Created | Updated Sep 16, 2007
Colin McRae died after a helicopter crash in Lanockshire on 15th September 2007 along with his son Johnny and 2 family friends.
Colin Steele McRae was born in Lanock, Scotland on the 5th August 1968. He was the oldest son of five times British Rally Champion Jimmy McRae, older brother of profesional driver Alister and became the first British winner of the World Rally Championship in 1995.
According to his father Jimmy, Colin's love of rallying started at an early age when he accompanied his father to rally's doing menial jobs such as cleaning windscreens, In 1986 he began his rally career driving a Talbot Sunbeam in the Scottish Rally Championships where he began to make a name for himself with his exciting style of driving that he carried on through his career, this style of driving was to draw comparison's to Colin's idol, the Finnish driver Ari Vatanen.
He moved from the Sunbeam to a Vauxhall Nova and then on to a Sierra XR 4x4. His first World Championship race came in 1987 in the Swedish Rally behind the wheel of the Nova and in 1989 he finished 5th overall in the Rally of New Zealand in a rear wheel drive Sierra Cosworth.
In 1991 he got his break when he signed to drive for Prodrive's Subaru team in the British Rally Championship, becoming the 1991 and 1992 champion. In 1993 he won the Rally of New Zealand, his first in the WRC, driving the purpose built Subaru Legacy, helping Subaru to 3 consecutive constructors titles and his own WRC victory in 1995 after the Rally of Great Britain with team mate Carlos Sinz coming second.
After that McRae's success varied, he won the race of Champions in 1998 and moved to the M-Sport Ford team in 1999 to drive their new Ford Focus Rally car, he was rewarded with 2 wins at the Safari Rally and the Rally of Portugal, the reliabilty of the car was to result in 6th place over all that year. In 2001 he fared a little better, finishing second, just 2 points behind the late Richard Burns, In 2002 Colin made the record books as the driver with the most win's in the WRC after victory in the Safari Rally, this has since been broken by Carlos Sinz and Sebastian Loeb. In 2003 he drove for Citroen and ended the season in 7th place which resulted in him being dropped from the team in 2004, after that he chose to retire. After his retirement he persued other interests which included driving a Nissan truck in the Dakkar Rally, competing in the 24 hours of Le Mans and flying helicopters. He returned for one off drives in 2005/6, his final rally was the Rally of Turkey in 2006 when he replaced Sebastian Loeb after he was injured in a cycling accident.
He leaves behind his wife Alison and daughter Hollie.
He will always be remembered for the spirited way he drove and for being a nice guy who had time for everyone.
RIP Colin McRae 1968 - 2007. Winner of the 1995 World Rally Championship
