Centre stage
Twenty years after the event, all that’s left is a sentimental blue and yellow kaleidoscope of memories: a vertiginous rush of details made all the more poignant by the fact that Englands first world rally champion is no longer with us.
Richard Burns won his title on the Rally of Great Britain in 2001 after an intense battle with Colin McRae, who himself became champion six years earlier. That set up a rivalry as complex as that of their disparate characters, but while their duel served to light up public awareness of the sport (thanks to tub-thumping headlines such as Battle of Britain!), it told nothing of the real story of what happened on November 25, when Richard achieved his lifelong ambition.
It would be a short life. Just four years later – to the day – Richard died following an unprecedentedly long two-year fight against an astrocytoma, a type of brain tumour. It feels unfair that this date and achievement will always be tinged by sorrow or remembrance.
One of Richard’s closest friends and his former housemate, the photographer Colin McMaster – who took some of the images seen on these pages – says: “The week of November 25 is always a tough one. It’s also my birthday on November 24, so you’re aware of time passing. Every year in November I see so many of my photos of Richard plastered all over social media. And overwhelmingly they are in remembrance, rather than celebration.”
At the time of Richard’s finest hour though, nobody knew what was coming. Looking back at those images, stripped of burdensome hindsight, they are joyous: the culmination of a dream. As Richard sped through the last sequence of corners at the end of the decisive Margam Park stage, he famously shouted to co-driver Robert Reid: “You’re the best in the
