Alan Watkins took in the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally of last weekend, and was fortunate enough to spend some time with Ari Vatanen and David Richards during the pre-event shakedown.
Alan was also able to chat to car builder David Sutton, and current Ford WRC boss Malcolm Wilson.
Alan reports that David Sutton advised him that he has four people interested in buying the car Vatanen used on the rally. The car is for sale at AUD$250,000.00 (one from France, one from Switzerland, and two from the UK, including David Richards himself).
Matthew Wilson and Scott Martin won the rally against a star-studded field. Driving an 2005-specification Ford Focus RS WRC, the pair dominated the event to win by over one and a half minutes.
A raft of former World Rally Champions including Bjorn Waldegard, Hannu Mikkola and Ari Vatanen all joined Wilson in this momentous event to pay tribute to the late Colin McRae – 2005 World Rally Champion and one of the sport’s all time characters.
The pair had a faultless run in their Ramsport-prepared Focus RS as they won all four spectacular forest stages around the Perthshire region in central Scotland. A fifth stage was due to run, but an accident to fellow Stobart Motorsport historic competitor Jimmy McRae caused the test to be cancelled. Both Jimmy and co-driver Andy Richardson were uninjured, but the car ended around 30 metres down, in a creek.
Also competing, in a Stobart-liveried Ford Escort MK2 was Colin’s brother Alister, who finished fourth overall and won class 12 by over one minute. Alister capped of a fine performance by setting the second fastest time on the final completed test of the day.
“What a fantastic event and it is great we could come out here and win it in memory of Colin, who was a driver I always looked up to as a young competitor coming into the sport,” Wilson said.
“I remember being taught how to drive in the back field in a MK2 Escort by Ari Vatanen when I was about eight, and I never thought I would get the chance to compete against him one day, or any of the other big names here. The organisers, officials and everybody involved in making this a special event did a great job and it must be said that everything was handled very well and everyone had a lot of fun.”
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