I was big fan of Colin’s dad, Jim McRae, in his day as one of the UK’s top rally drivers and spent many a foggy, rainy night stood on some remote forest special stage watching him and my other rally heroes flash by.
I saw Colin in some of his first national events, but never saw him at the height of his success, other than on TV. He went on to become Britain’s first Rally Champion in 1995 and one of the sport’s greatest ambassadors.
He embraced new technology and new markets. He gave his name to one of the best racing video games that introduced millions of kids, who had never looked at the sport before, to rallying and motor sports in general. He embraced and encouraged Rallying as the latest edition to the X-Games.
Above all he was passionate about the sport of racing in all its forms having also raced at Le Mans in sports cars and tested Formula One Grand Prix cars.
Several of the tributes I’ve read describe McCRae as “fearless”, yes he was, but he was also one of the rare few natural talents who could take a car and dance with it in that supreme ballet that signifies the perfect combination of man and machine.
Reigning NASCAR Nextel Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson took his fifth win of the season with a strong perfomance at his “home” track in Fontana California. Johnson led 84 out of the 250 laps, dominating the last part of the race.
Last week’s winner Carl Edwards had another strong showing, finishing second. Kyle Busch, who lead most laps, finished third after a brush with the wall. Dale Earnhardt Jr. kept his slim hopes of making the Championship Chase alive with a fifth place. The race was relatively incident free although one wreck ended with veteran Ricky Rudd, making his 900th start, being taken to hospital for precautionary x-rays on his arm.
The most spectacular exit of the day was by Michael Waltrip who had a burst tire cut an oil line which engulfed his car in flames. It also appeared that Waltrip had some difficulty extricating himself from the burning vehicle once it had come to a rest.
The Top 10 finishers were:
1. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet)
2. Carl Edwards (Ford)
3. Kyle Busch (Chevrolet)
4. Jeff Burton (Chevrolet)
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Chevrolet)
6. Martin Truex Jr. (Chevrolet)
7. Matt Kenseth (Ford)
8. Brian Vickers (Toyota)
9. Kurt Busch (Dodge)
10. Kasey Kahne (Dodge)
In what seems to be coming the regular picture of the later stages of the 2007 IRL season, AGR’s Tony Kanaan snatches victory, only to have his win over shadowed by an incident involving team mate Dario Franchetti.
While Kanaan played an excellent fuel strategy to win the IRL race at Detroit’s refurbished Belle Isle road circuit, all the talk was of a last lap incident invloving Franchetti and championship rival Scott Dixon. Dixon spun to avoid Buddy Rice, who had run out of fuel, and in trying to collect up his car backed in to Franchetti. Both limped to the finish to make sure they scored championship points. Almost unnoticed in the melee was the fact that Danica Patrick scored a career best second place.
The Top 10 finishers were:
1. Tony Kanaan
2. Danica Patrick
3. Dan Wheldon
4. Darren Manning
5. Kosuke Matsuura
6. Dario Franchitti
7. Buddy Rice
8. Scott Dixon
9. AJ Foyt IV
10. Ed Carpenter
Justin Wilson took his first ChampCar win of the season during the series second European race at Assen in Holland. Wilson beat Sebastian Bourdais away from the line and was never really headed for the rest of the race.
Bourdais, and others, seemed to suffer from problems with a mal-functioning “power-to-pass” button and the race director instructed that it not be used; making overtaking vitually impossible on the tight fast track. A rare mistake by Bourdais, (stalling on a pit stop), further hampered his chances. Local favorite Robert Doornbos’s Minardi team miscalculated on fuel meaning a last minute pit stop dropped him to the back of the pack and a lowly 13th place finish.
The Top 10 finishers were:
1. Justin Wilson (RuSPORT)
2. Jan Heylen (Conquest)
3. Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne)
4. Tristan Gommendy (PKV)
5. Neel Jani (PKV)
6. Simon Pagenaud (Team Australia)
7. S.Bourdais (Newman/Haas/Lanigan)
8. Oriol Servia (Forsythe Championship)
9. Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan)
10. Ryan Dalziel (Pacific Coast Motorsports)
Ford’s Marcus Gronholm snatched an amazing victory in the Rally New Zealand after three days of constant lead changes between himself and championship rival Sebastian Loeb.
At the start of the event it looked like Gronholm would dominate the event, but Loeb reeled him in during the second day grabbing the lead by day’s end. During the last day of stages the two would constantly swap the lead with the gap never being larger than 2.9 seconds. Gronholm’s eventual 0.3 second margin of victory is the closest in modern rallying, and gives him a 10 point lead over Loeb in the championship battle.
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