Best of British

[PUDDIN]

:-D cool driving poor scooby

[duncan]

I used to Rally both Nationally and Internationally in my dark and distant past and we always went by the motto that to finish first, first you have to finish. It was cheaper that way, we paid our own bills and had to rely on finish money from Peugeot to pay some of our "investment" back. It also meant that the car kept going - we only retired once from mechanical problems (punctured fuel tank).

Colin obviously never applies that theory and goes flat out all the time. About 50% of the time he was lucky and didnt ditch it in which case he won, but the rest of the the time was a new car. Lucky for him when he was in theory a privateer, he had his dad Jimmy to stump up repair bills or ready built backers by way of garages etc.

Most other drivers have not grown up in that situation and simply could not do that as a privateer regardless of how rich your dad was. This has taught them to respect the machinery that they are driving. I would include Richard Burns in that group. To me, he was a great driver with exceptional talent but also a brain and would drive as fast as he needed to get the right result, whether that be winning or coming second. That is what rallying is about. Sebastian Loeb is of the same mould, he just happens to be f'ing fast aswell but never makes the mistakes that Colin used to, and does suffer mechanical problems either due to his sensitivity to how the car works.

Reading back on the above it sounds like a real downer on mcrae, it isnt - just I dont see Colin's showboating as modern rallying or something that any up and coming driver could/should eumlate.

[end rant]

[Ben]

Agree totally though. If I wasn't responsible for the cost of parts on my car and repairing it everytime it broke I'm sure it would be a much faster but more beaten car.

Interestingly for the race team - what is their goal - it must be to win - but also to get their sponsors on TV - so if he leads for 50% of the race before binning it - they still got good advertising.

[Stuart]

Interesting comments. I think a good thread would be a poll to vote for the greatest driver and accompany that with a short clip of your voted drver doing their stuff. Maybe try and include some potted history of their acheivements too.