Colin McRae died
after a helicopter crash in Lanarkshire on 15th September 2007 along
with his son Johnny and two family friends.

Colin Steele McRae was born in Lanark, Scotland on the 5 August
1968. He was the oldest son of five times British Rally Champion Jimmy
McRae, older brother of professional 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 rallies 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 reliability of the car was
to result in 6th place overall that year. In 2001 he fared a little
better, finishing second, just two points behind the late Richard Burns. In 2002 Colin made the record
books as the driver with the most wins 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 pursued other interests
which included driving a Nissan truck in the Dakkar Rally, competing
in the 24 hour races at 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.

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