Mcrae Gathering Gets A 3 Page Article

[t3hWIT]

Photographer Lee Brimble and I are queuing for a burger when he unleashes his killer Colin McRae anecdote. In 2004, McRae had hooked up with his old compadres at Prodrive to campaign a Ferrari 550GTS Maranello in that year's Le Mans 24 Hours enduro (in which he'd finish an impressive ninth overall). "So anyway," says Lee between mouthfuls of chargrilled beef, "I'm strapped in beside him in this bloody thing, trying to take pictures. And as we're approaching the chicane in the middle of the Mulsanne straight he turns to me and says, 'Hope you don't mind, but I'm feeling a wee bit slidey today.'"

Colin McRae lived his life permanently sideways. A rather dry Scotsman he may have been, and a fellow of relatively few words day-to-day, but he was a superhero behind the wheel, as flambouyant and ferociously improvisational with a rally car as Jimmy Page is when he's wielding his guitar.

This much we already knew, What we didn't know but are certainly finding out today is that, a year on from his untimely death in a helicopter accident, McRae has become a full-blown folk hero. While the rest of the country is basking in the afterglow of Olympic glory in Yingling (whatever that is), more than 1,000 Subaru Impreza owners have descended on Prodrive's well-hidden Warwickshire proving ground to pay tribute to a man called Colin.

Subaru and McRae: whatever else may have happened, the two are inextricably linked. Not only were they made for each other, they made each other.

The McRae Gathering, as it's known, is a curiously, perhaps even surprisingly emotional experience. Standing at the entrance to the circuit, a seemingly neve-ending river of Imprezas eddies past, the massed ranks of flat-four boxer engines issuing that familiar, warbling backbeat. It reminds me of a scene in the film March of the Penguins. No two cars are the same; as their occupants wait patiently to be let in, it's a reminder of just how thoroughly this unglamorous but fearsomely fast Japanese saloon and hatch dominated the automotive firmament in the mid- to late-'Nineties.

There's also something life-affirming about this sort of thing: while middle England panics about knife-wielding hoodies and collapsing house prices, here's proof that a few thousand ordinary people can still have a genuinely uplifting communal experience in 2008. But that's rally fans for you, and not a bobble hat in sight.

There is an underlying purpose, though. Money is being raised for various charities, including the ones backed by Colin and his family. More amusingly but no less seriously, the organisers are planning an assault on the Guinness World Record for a giant car 'mosaic'. The record currently stands at 280; a Guinness representative is on hand to officiate at today's attempt. (While he's here, he may also want to take a look at the queue for burgers; Brimble and I are hungry again, but not that hungry.) The impetus for the McRae Gathering came from Glaswegian Grant Hendry. A devoted rally fan, Grant is also a DHL courier who found himself covering the McRae family's Jerviswood patch in Lanarkshire.

"Where I grew up, you either supported Celtic or Rangers," he tells me, "so I got into motorsport instead, which saved me a whole load of trouble. I followed Jimmy McRae when I was a kid, and it was only when I was watching the Galloway Hills rally one year that I first heard about his son, Colin."

Hendry talks about McRae with the same hushed reverence Melvyn Bragg would talk about, say, Francis Bacon. "I remember watching him at the Network Q in '94. There was a load of us in the back of a Transit. It was so cold that we had to take one fo the guy to hospital afterwards. But I remember seeing Colin in the Kielder Forest and what he was doing in the car... it was like ballet or something. Everyone could see that this guy just had some special connection with his car.

"Mind you he was an old-school sort of talent. A guy like Tommi Makkinen was hyper accurate, hyper smooth. Colin was always trying to fight the computers in the car. He was uncomplicated but brilliant."

The Gathering, says Hendry, was partly inspired by a similar event held last year to commemorate the other great lost British rally driving talent, Richard Burns. "It started growing legs when [Prodrive] boss David Richards heard about our plans," he continues. "I'm just a DHL courier and I needed help with local councils and the rest of it. So the call went out to the local Scooby community, and the call was heard."

Which is why this amazing convoy set off from McRae's hometown in Lanarkshire on the last day of August, before making its way down the M74, M6, M42 and M40, led by Prodrive's David Lapworth in McRae's world title-winning car. With the exception of the ones belonging to local farmers, every motorway bridge between Lanark and Banbury is heaving with onlookers. There's even one spanning the M40 on which a family is enjoying a barbecue, plastic chairs and all (no queue here for grilled cow). Colin would no doubt have been amused.

Even when things go slightly awry and 300-odd Imprezas get lost in Warwick city centre, the mood remains upbeat. And for once, nobody grumbles about the inevitable congestion on the way in. "If Carlsberg made traffic jams..." Hendry observes.

Inside, the gathering is as enthusiastic - and occasionally as eccentric - as you'd imagine. A bloke called Paul, who speaks with the oak-smoked brogue typical of the region, has driven his Impreza 22B all the way down from Donegal, in Ireland's north-west corner. Originally built for McRae's co-driver Nicky Grist, it's a corker. "I went to my bank manager to borrow the money to buy it," he says, "and to begin with he refused me the loan. When I told him what it was for it turned out he was a rally driver himself and he told me to book the flight, swing by the next day to get the banker's draft, and get the car pronto. The Impreza is the iconic common man's car. Colin wasn't driving for himself, or Prodrive. He was driving for the guys standing at the next corner."

Another (Scottish) fan is even more succinct: "Why am I here? It was Colin's driving style. Nae fear!" he says, eyes ablaze."

True enough. As we wander through the cars as they're corralled into specially marked slots - "this is the top of the 'R' in McRae," Subaru World Rally Team member Andy Philport helpfully points out - we can't help noticing that the legend 'If in doubt, flat out' is a popular one among the Gathering's faithful. Down at the other end, silver and blue cars have been assembled into a huge Saltire. ("Colin was Scottish first, and British a very distant second," Grand Hendry says. "The McRae family have a history that goes back to the battle of Bannockburn.")

And as the evening light begins to dwindle, and the man from Guinness confirms that a new record has indeed been set: 1,086 cars spelling out the name Colin McRae. Oh, and another: for the longest parade of cars.

The great man is a winner once again.

It's a good read and has a few cool photos with it. Might be worth picking up the issue if you haven't already.

[cullenmin]

Nice write up there

[RA Dunk]

cracking find m8

[euan_r]

cheers for heads up, will get a copy.

[micra_wrc]

aye, its a good article.

love that it maintains the TG humour

there are also features in Nov issue of Jap Performance and the forthcoming edition of Total Impreza

we're almost ready to open sales on the limited print of the aerial mosaic image, only available through McRae Gathering shop.

keep an eye on the Gathering website

in the 8 weeks since the event Grant and I have been:

- dealing with various journalists and press people for their post-event write up;

- getting autographs from the old timers at the McRae stages rally to auction off the memorabilia we've got;

- filiming, publicising, processing and dispatching the raffle draw;

- cataloguing, supervising, processing and dispatching auction items (most of the winners are overseas);

- chatting with Jim Bamber re selling his "evos suck" cartoon

- developing the design for the mosaic limited print, as well as sourcing suitable printers and packaging

- developing the design for the poster version of the mosaic image

- tying up the paperwork and finances

man we've not stopped working on this event

Edited October 28, 2008 by micra_wrc

[thefastone]

ooh, so thats TG AND EVO that I need to get out and buy today!!!!

Nice one!

[t3hWIT]

Wow Imy, I guess the work never ends.

[thefastone]

Cracking write up and pics there, really nice article! just bought it and had a read over a coffee! Nice one!

Imy, theres and end in sight! cant go on much longer!!! then its time to RELAX!!!!!!

[scouk]

Cracking write up

WIll be heading out later for a copy, but reading what was posted above, that's one of the best writeups I've seen

[thefastone]

Its better with Pics...

[oobster]

Spotted this earlier today, read it on the plane on the way down to pick up my new car.

Cracking article with some really good pics, and quotes from Grant