Chris Harris Talks Cars With Nicky Grist

welcome to the Collecting Cars.com podcast with Chris Harris and Edward Lovett Hello Collecting cast, special day for me because I'm currently sitting nearby, he referred to one of my heroes, his name is Nicky Grist and he sat next to some of the better drivers. on the planet he is also an incomparable storyteller, so you want to follow him on Twitter. He's in Nikki Grace. He now has his motorsports apparel business, including steel helmets, which is under Nikki Garris Motorsports. See me on Nick egress comm if we are going to do it. serious plug if you go if you go to any event you see an NG it's not a cookie maker it's a genuinely rich motorsport Nikki so Nikki thank you so much for having us at your workplace.

I want to start from the beginning with you because They ask you mostly about the people you were driving with. Let's hear about you. We don't hear about you enough. So let's start at the beginning. You were born in a Bevelle. I was born in Abbeville, so I'm a Welsh lad. From start to finish I spent all my time basically in Wales, but my first real love wasn't

cars

when I was young. I wasn't interested in it, it was golf and I started playing golf at a very young age. by my grandfather and you know, when I got to the age of leaving school, you know, I left as soon as I could because I just wanted to get into the golf business and I was a system professional at the Mancha golf club in Hamburg, and already You know. only after working there for a couple of years, which was hard work as a kid, so at that point you scratch yourself, what were you paying well?

No, although my handicap would have been greater than that, I think it was a reduction of four or five. when I turned pro, something like that, what do you know, yeah, you play a lot. I've actually played golf with Nicky a couple of times, yes he comes with a great left to right swing. I also discarded people from my game, it's too many people. It bothered him, so, you see, you were a very good target for them with you, yes, he was, he was very interested, very excited and I would say when you look at the professional golfers on the PGA Tour, those are exceptional, you really know that you are a club professional.

I could be just as successful as a teaching professional, but I wouldn't necessarily be around these guys and you know, I think there are different levels of professional golf and I wasn't wondering at what point you realized your skill level wasn't meeting your ambition. . with golf when I went to see my first road rally and that was his. I went to see right behind the golf club there's a mountain called Blue Ridge and I was at an engagement party in Gilliland and one of the guys' boyfriend or one of the girls' boyfriends was doing this rally and they said, "Oh, it's going over the Bloor inch", so we went on a gill party, one went up to the top of this mountain at one in the morning and there was all this rs2000. and guys hanging around I thought, God, this is brilliant and we met a couple of other guys who knew where the rally was going so we just jumped on it, so where's next?

What is the next place? Know? and then before I knew it, it was 5:00 in the morning having breakfast at a why and I thought, oh my god, I didn't know this world is in the late 70s now, where are we? Yes, you would have reached 70 without trying to age, you just want to achieve something. I contextualize the audience, well, anyway, um, ovals, but that's another story and that was it. I got hooked. I mean, I just saw a few more and then I started looking into joining my local Motor Club and then I got involved with some guys and started racing and you know.

I was going to do these road rallies on a Saturday night while you were driving or we were driving. This is the introduction. I think it's really interesting that from the beginning you identify the appeal of this thing of driving a shotgun because, let's be honest, most people who see a vehicle driven. that kind of way they want to drive themselves why do you think you wanted to sit in the passenger seat? I think it was because of my job in the first place because at the time I was earning £50 a week or something like that.

You know, I was driving a Riley Kestrel, that's all I could have thought about. I mean, what a wonderful car. I wish I had that now, but you know it was an old Austin 1300 with leather and chrome interior. warm, that somehow sounds better with your world, France too, Riley Castro, I sound that good, but you know, and that was I basically couldn't afford a rally car. I couldn't, yeah, you know, the only way I could get involved was as a navigator and then, you know, as things progressed, I put a little bit of effort into it and you know, I got hooked and I was excited and I worked hard. , I practiced a lot, you know, and finally the seats got bigger and better, and you know.

When I started doing some stage rallies, you know I was in vehicles sailing in vehicles that there was no way I could afford to drive. This is also fascinating because, going back to the point of your entry into the sport, if you are a Driver, the first thing you want to do is beat your competition, but as a sailor, how can you be better than other sailors? It's fascinating that people hear this, so they've probably never thought about the fact that the person driving the shotgun must be as good within their own fields as the pilot doesn't, and I think in terms of road rallies where I started, it was a tremendous discipline for any good co-driver because on open roads you are not like a stage rally where we are following the arrows and if you have someone sitting on a stage, you know that a driver can compensate for a lot of the co-pilot disability because you can see a little and drive according to your own ability. in road rallies they have to tell you where the slot is you know you can't afford to go over because you're losing vital seconds you know it and you could go there's no point going four miles down the road in the wrong direction because by the time you you come back it's eight miles and you've lost all the time so the whole emphasis was largely based on how good the Navigator was and that's where I started and when I started doing motor news events, you know, when they really are road events.

If you know, it was tremendously satisfying to be able to lay out a 200 mile route in 45 minutes, you know, go and have a cup of tea and relax knowing full well exactly where you're going and you could be speeding down the roads. you've never been before and you could identify a slot within 50 yards of the map, you know how to read, look, do you think you have an unnatural ability to suddenly generate three-dimensional from a map just because I think some people do, I mean, some people look at one of my kids, he's amazing with the map and another one, actually, I think I know, he just sees others and Norse has no idea what the information is that got me to the top, I think.

You must have something there that is not normal at all. I can, you can, if you're going somewhere you've never been before. I can look at the map on the computer, but here we go. roundabout, yeah, turn right and then we take that slot going north and then at the top there's a, you know, it's all there, yeah, and you can feel far away and it's having that unnatural ability to be able to find your way and You don't realize how useful it is until you start a crop list rally in central Athens and you're trying to get out of Athens.

You know it's the worst place in the world to drive or boat, but you have a sixth sense, you know when you make it work right, so you joined this road rally, you watched, you mentioned the automotive news rallies and it's pretty clear you've got something that happened to others, so I'm looking back through some biographical stuff. that the name that comes up early in Steve Davey seems harsh, but he was the first person you thought you had had proper success with, yes, yes, really from Abergavenny and a big event that he also ran, it started with 1,300 escorts and in arms of thousands of us.

We went down the road to mantra news with Steve and we were the good guys, he was the youngest driver to win a motoring news event and we probably won every rebel rally event at the time, it was death one day out west of Wales. where you would have a 200 mile route within a 12 mile radius from the starting city, you know, back and forth, ducking and diving through hairpins, slots, T-junctions on the left, you know and you know it was a whole Was it fun or was it pressure, oh? It was a lot of fun for me, yeah, you know, and I think, I think, I think that when you're going to be good at something, if you have to think a lot, it worries me, you're not necessarily on the path to Success is having that inner confidence, just saying okay, it feels good, relax and you know, we'll talk later in my career about the drivers that I've been with, they all had that internal ability of knowing that they could do it and they couldn't.

I even have to think about it, it just happened, so when did you take the step to become a professional, when, when did it become your livelihood, the big step? I was still working at the time, but that was my first step on a pro team that was with a GM dealership driving sporty with a Kendall talker named Dave Metcalfe. Yeah, the car control that guy had when we were using his 1600 Nova, you wouldn't have thought it was like that. Anyone could put the car on that side, okay? I found a clip of a Nova being driven in a really ridiculous way on Instagram and I reposted it saying what is this and someone said Dave met Karl so I googled it, yeah Jesus what was it? doing, I ran to Yoshi, wasn't he basically driving a standard yacht madness and to be honest it was Sean, naughty boy, you've hit the nail on the head, he's probably the only other guy I've seen with front wheel drive. control Dave Matt Guf and you know we'd be doing the Manx.

I think our best result that year was the Manx International, an all-asphalt event and three

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beat us, all factory Ford Sierra Cosworths and then we had a huge Sierra Cosworth behind us driven by talented amateurs, you know, and there's a 600 Nova, it was like they took us to the stage and that was my first good feeling, this is incredible, what does it do now? Day Mcdead, oh yes, unfortunately he is dead. you know he died while testing a rally car oh yeah yeah no it's a shame but I mean if I had had the real chance in a world car it would have been great but honestly the angles we remember of my hair there were. a sharp downhill right turn, we take this long flat left turn and you know the speed was off the scale and you know he's got, let's go over the slot back and then straight up, you know no one In his right mind he would have done it. the confidence to do that, but Dave Wood, so I love the way you already talk and unguarded about sitting next to someone who drives in a way that most human beings clearly do, didn't you worry, did you?

When did he do it? When did you start doing it? period, don't think that you just want to be with the guy who's going to win, right? Yes, absolutely, and yes, I think whoever the driver is would think I'm a complete lunatic, but you know, with people with the one I have sat on. In general, they're exceptionally talented, you know, and these guys don't want to get hurt, you know, they're not absolute nutcases and there's an accident around every corner waiting to happen, you know, we're talking about guys who are taking things to the limit and you have control total of the car and you know the satisfaction you get when they have had a great time on the stage and you have made the notes perfectly and everything fits, you know it is a tremendous satisfaction from the passenger seat and I never thought about it because with some guys, If you've thought about it, you've already read a beat, not too late, yes, you know, and that's the point you're at, you're caught up in what you're doing, you feel where you are. you're on the road through the seat of your pants and you know you're delivering those notes because it's absolutely vital to let them go as quickly as possible but keep them on track, so Dave Matt Koff 89 GM dealership sports tours where do they do it?

After that I was team-mates with Malcolm Wilson and Malcolm was driving an Astra at the time and a year later he had a chance with Ford, the Borum, Ford's original motorsport base in Essex, and Malcolm came to see me and he said, Do you fancy this, you know, he said we have, I have a great opportunity, it's a two-year contract and you know, of course, I had to say yes, I mean, that was it. I was full time at the time, so we did the British championship in 1990, we did some testing and development work for what is probably the most ungainly looking group, a car they have ever made, a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth, and We did the testing and development for that and then we started with, I think, three world championship rallies. then starting with the thousand lakes of Sanremo and then the GP rally, then you are racing on a Sierra and developing the sapphire or you are already racing on a sapphire,wait no we do the british championship in a two wheel drive sapphire yeah and then we do it.

The development work initially with a four-wheel drive car and then about three World Championship events in the late 1990s, then led to five or six events, I think it was '91, only to break off a bit there for the people who love car magazines. because many of you hear this, look at the car magazines, that car is very relevant because if you remember the late great Belgian Russell, he wrote one of the most famous articles about it starting. Today I feel a little Malcolm and they lent it to him. q8 sponsored yes yes it's curious Sapphire reflected and They lent it to this journalist to use it for a day with the runner in another place and he opens the glove compartment.

Anita, ECU just says Malcolm, he's brilliant, then he wrote this amazing story about I feel a bit Malcolm. today, but it loves to come full circle because that was the car you talked about all along and they tell you that of all the road cars I ever had as a company vehicle, that was probably one of the best cars for sale , they just didn't get anything. he was there, yes, it had a lot of power, it handled well, you could put five people in the car with all the luggage in the trunk and I mean it was the perfect scenario, but yeah, like he did it, you did it, you won the British championship.

How did it go? We were beaten by David Llewellyn and at that time David Llewellyn was managed by my now owner, Phil Collins, and the cars would come from my unit where you were just being and the unit next door, so this was Toyota TV. base and them so yeah this was a four wheel drive car that drove exceptionally well and we were only in a two wheel drive car we really had no chance but you know it was a stepping stone to bigger things and better and you know it was Actually, it was the World Championship and apart from Wales Rally GB I never competed outside of Britain except in some odd events, all four of those three rallies you had, the World Rally is which It was your first 1000 Lagos, it was the first. one and my goodness, what a truck you know and you sit with it and no disrespect, Malcolm is a top notch driver you know, but that event is so off the scale for anyone not used to a man in his pomp, So what was the input? a couple hundred cars, right?

Yeah, well, probably at least at least, but you know you would have had, you know, at that time, ninety heroes, you would have had your Lancias, but yeah, Toyota would have been there with a 165 and you know you had. top drivers at that time, you know, but driving in Finland is completely different to anywhere else because you know for a co-driver it was quite difficult to maintain concentration levels there because you have undulating gravel roads at a really high speed and You could have this monster jump into a complicated scenario from right to left, you know, and people like the Finns would know it perfectly well, but anyone else has to back off, they have to take it easy, you know, they probably ruined us. the water by these locals, but anyway it was a great experience for your skill and for your craft, how were you a hitter?

Did you try to meet with the local code drivers to try to talk to them or was it more of a hunker down mentality? do your best because you are a bit of a sponge, your smart type. I'm sure you wanted to go and absorb information but people aren't always willing to hand it over to others, no, not really, and I think that You know, I think I do a bit of training now with Motorsport UK with the unco drivers and it's about of pre-event preparation and attention to detail, so you're doing your homework, you're trying to find videos, you're trying to watch them to get. a sense of who you are there's none of that for you you can just do YouTube and have a look on the forums because you're not at that time no, but you know you try to do the best you can by buying DVDs or videos and You know, you have a kind of a hunch, but we had teammates, we had a plan.

Rick Lowe is our teammate, although I had my Rashke driving Ronan McNamee and I don't think Ronan was necessarily Decatur's best because he was funnier. was it quite controllable or not, I mean, yeah, it was okay, it was okay, but it happened that you know, in the Sierra, I'm sorry to get away from us there, you know, we did the second rally we did was in San Remo and the first one. The San Remo stages were just north of the city in the mountains at night and we had these exhausts that they put on the car, which was a little disconcerting because I kept having these flames shooting up 20 feet from the side of the car and what they did not have.

We put enough heat protection on the plastic sills we had on the car because Penn T's car caught on fire, so Penty jumped out of the car trying to get the fire extinguisher and unfortunately pulled his back and was in a lot of pain. for trying to get your hand out from behind his seat and it happened that you know he made a health insurance claim for this. Well, you know, as a professional driver, he doesn't do these things and, surprisingly, he never drove it again, but that was, that was enough for you, he, um, so when he obviously retired and wanted to make a few quid, He still had his driving school later, when I started to be a journalist, he came to one of our program "How good can you be." driving challenges in Autocar magazine we call it the side challenge all great racing drivers appeared.

Oh, a young Lewis Hamilton appeared at 16 years old. There was this amazing event, the last one we did and we had a good amount and he showed up like he hadn't slept. For a couple of days, God bless him, he, to demonstrate his control of the car, showed up in a front-wheel drive Mitsubishi Galant and took the wheel for a spin. We had to drive around this whole circle sideways in a black and white M car. and he did it sideways with the handbrake in front-wheel drive in his galant, just by pulling the bar as best he could, he made a whole lap in his front-wheel drive car.

I never understood what they were about because none of the young people knew who it was, yes, but a tremendous driver and also incredibly charismatic, yes, I thought of Colin Goodwin, who will be appearing on this podcast soon, he soon turns to me and says that he has the conviction that makes you believe that he could solve the third world debt with a brake hand, can I tell you a story about a magnet? Because God, Ron, and during the tear, one of these Rekhas I was talking about at one point was driving for a GM sports dealership and they were sponsored by British Telecom.

Astra yellow and blue, yes, and they were doing the multi with the points, that's right, that's right, and they were at the Ulster rally and they were staying in the most bombed hotel in Belfast, being the Europa, so Ronan, with his wicked style, he said to Penty, listen, this is a pretty serious place. the most bombed hotel in Belfast and you know it's pretty serious at the moment there's a lot of rioting in the city against it you know a bombing is a real possibility so what you have to do is sleep on the floor so you have to prepare your grandchildren and stuff and then you have to take the mattress off the bed and you have to sleep under the mattresses, the only way to protect yourself anyway Pentti said oh sure, okay, he was very serious, and he says : I think I have to go to bed.

I have to go prepare my room, so he leaves. It's a Ronan McNamee, don't give him an hour or something, and at the bar he catches them, but he runs into one of the local guys. come and open on the roof and there's a lot on the floor with his mattress baby mattress anyway back in the bed God anyway, but he was also a big boy in the car, doesn't he remember you look at those old ones thence? they met MOBOT, what they did in the Mobil 1 championship was 89 90 or was it 91-89 90 he's on it and he's just huge, he fills the car, he doesn't bend, but he does.

I think many Finns are naturally exceptionally talented. And I think a lot of European drivers have to work hard to be fast, yes, and it shows in the way they drive the car. I was fortunate to be able to sit with two exceptionally talented people throughout my career. We didn't cover a little bit later, but when you're in the car everything is like slow motion, but then you can look at a Carlos Sainz who is just as fast as the day but you can see that he is working hard and the sweat is dripping off him. and his tests are extreme to the point of almost not making sure everything is covered, but not necessarily being better and Penty was one of these guys who was just playing with the car, he was just dancing to you. you know with the pedals and the steering and you know he just makes it sing and it's a great pleasure and now I've driven a little bit recently, you know I'm behind the wheel thinking, Christ, what am I?

I'm supposed to do it here, you know, in this situation, but when you're in the passenger seat, my entire career has been alongside some of the best drivers in the world through all the testing and development work we've done. , You know? You have a tremendous ability to feel the car from the passenger seat without having to think about driving and you know what I can do when I sit with someone. I'm much more sensitive to what he's doing and seeing how he performs. As much as I just read the notes and move on, and I mean, I've been lucky in my career to sit with some wonderful people, so let's start with them, so 993 is your first year in the World Rally Championship, was it 92? ?

Well, no, no. It would have been 90 with Malcolm, let's go to a3 and 91, yes, but then at the end of 1991 I had the opportunity to go to the then Toyota Europe team, which was my first experience with the main World Championship power at that time. The time the guy landed here, those were the J's, they were the ones spending money, they were, they were the kids and they asked me to go and do a whole test and development program for the st1 85 salika for Africa with a Swedish driver called Mikael Ericsson, yes, no, Mikael. at that point I had won two or three World Championship rallies, I think in December we went out and did this test and development programme, spent three weeks in camps and went on safari, and you know, the whole experience was mind-blowing, as I had never been there. to Africa before the conditions we had to drive in, so then we came home for Christmas, came straight back at the beginning of the new year and then rebuilt this Tesco doing a three thousand mile loop of the route as Rick as a recce to then go to the airport to meet this Antonov plane that just arrived and how much money they spend.

I know an Antonov airplane just rolls on the runway and opens the whole nose and comes out the front, you know, a new 185. Rally car with all the novelties that they have decided in the test that they want, with full service fans and well prepared Toyota Land Cruisers, chase cars and the helicopter, so the helicopters, our observer, you see, we have to have a place today. because the roads open up, yeah, and then, Christ, this is for us, so they said, right, Nick, you've got a couple of days and we're going to go through everything, pack up the vans, make sure everything's okay and then we go to do a full rehearsal of the entire rally route, so what they have, they have the shed that you will give to the organizers and they have worked looking at the times and everything else, they will do it competitively in all the sections, but then maybe we could get to a service point where it would have five minutes, so with a five minute service stop maybe we would have to wait there fifteen minutes to let the vans go ahead and make sure they were at the next place ready to go. us, so it was like four five thousand kilometers and we had the helicopter above us with the engineer, so he warns us about animals, cars, people, buses, whatever, so we did it, then we did some tests and then we had a few days off and then we went and did it all again, so it was three thousand miles twice competitively and then they let us go home for a week or so and then we had to go back there and do the recce for the rally. appropriate because Carlos, Carlos and Marco Ln were the main drivers at that time, so we go back to do a reconnaissance of the whole fight that was on the kilometer route again, so we already have $15,000, yes, plus all the tests what have we done. done, but then you do it twice, but Miguel said no, I'm not going to do this again.

I've been on this route enough now so he went on holiday to Mombasa, unfortunately my kale never drove for the team again because everyone understands that he was offended that he was paid here to continue. You're kidding, no, he never drove in the world championship again for anyone, but it's a good thing my kale did because Lewis Moyer had a tremendous fever, see? I'm leading to another story here, yes, I could take up all your spaces, okay, continue with this podcast. It's about you, they know about me, we don't, I don't need to talk likeGerman World Cup, although it meant a lot to Colin.

I think winning and being fast was also of interest to Colin, you know, the World Championship, what does it really mean? At the end of the day, Colin was a Once world champion, there are others with three four five six seven eight world championships, but that doesn't make them better because it doesn't mean they are considered greater. Now you could argue that Colin's legacy is greater than theirs. because his name is completely synonymous with the most exciting era of the sport and I think you're right that the Subaru era doesn't bring this championship and I think people thought it was going to be between you and him and then you move to fall.

Yes, and Ford, that's the beginning of my working life and I'm there when Norma is the focus. Ford has spent billions on this and they need to compete with it because, like you did in those days, I remember how exciting it was. I remember Ford flew me out to see them in Monte Carlo and they put us all up at the Carlton in San Tropez. I mean, the money they must have spent was on helicopter rides to see them on stage. pretty clear, the car had about 40 less horsepower and everyone else's car had some amazing type of gear linkage coming out of the dash of the halls, as I call it, I was going to start it, yeah, I mean, yeah , I think the entire front.

The thing came up as much as anything about Colin being with Subaru since '89. I mean, I think there are very few car companies that can honestly say this and you probably didn't mention this, but I think Colin McRae had such a huge impact on Subaru. as a car company. Yeah, which I don't think any driver was able to do because the popularity of the car skyrocketed, but I think he got to a point in his career without having won the World Championship in '97 because of this. In the other 98 it wasn't a good year, we had numerous little problems and maybe a few mistakes here and there, but he just felt that unless he makes the move now, he'll never get the chance to go anywhere else, yeah, and I think that's where the whole Ford thing really came about, it's like there was an opportunity, he was the most obvious person.

If you're Ford, you know you obviously want to win a World Rally Championship with your new car, but you were also marketing, you know, with the marketing activity. You're there to bring as many eyes as possible to this new car, yes, and frankly, if Colin McRae doesn't win, you're probably going to bring more eyes to your car than a lesser-known driver who wins, yes, the first day you have completely right and much later. In the race we will talk about Skoda because they were impressed and he hadn't even done a rally for them before the rally, but that's another story, but he still had a big impact for them.

It was a very risky move, it was helped in some ways by the highest salary package any team had paid a rally driver before, yeah, you know, obviously, that was, you know what it was, it was just over five million at that time for a rally driver in 99 yeah, that was a lot of money back then, oh no, it was that he went in any direction, not even close and you know, everyone said: wow, she is this is something that you know so obviously I love the fact that you diverted what you were paid. Speaking of what they were paying him, don't you know there are no damn flies on you as long as you had the doubt, but I was happy with my luck.

The place I always wanted to get to, yes I think so at the time, but again you were on the crest of the wave, you know it was always you moving from one thing to the next, to the next and there was never time. to stop unless you're going to talk a little after dinner or whatever you know, when you tell these stories you start to think about it a little bit when they ask you the questions, you didn't think about it but you know it was a risky move because Normally , any driver like that is going to make a decision, you know it's going to be based on how good the car is in the first place, so let's do some testing, let's do a comparison, see how fast it is, let's do this, let's do that, maybe you're back to a previous test route that you would use with other equipment, yes. and then you go from the same star point to the end point and then you can compare, take a look and you know, there was some logic there, but this was just that the car hadn't even been built at this point, you know, and it was like a drawing and it was on the proving ground south of Milton Keynes Millbrook Millbrook they had an office in Millbrook and you know he was in charge of the project don't you know a Formula One team manager who swears and swears a lot In fact?

It's good to store the jug, it was Gunther Steiner who directed the whole thing, so you know he put it all together and they came. His use of the vernacular was quite prevalent at the time as well. I think you know it's probably a little different. Now I remember back then, but you know, we got to that point and we were there. They asked us to come down and take a look. We have the big launch at Ford. I don't remember where we were somewhere in Essex. we duplicated the press releases and the photographs and it was all wham bam, but the car hadn't run yet, so all it was was just drawing a shell on the board and putting it all together, so they actually asked us to go to Millbrook a week later and they just said Weston was starting the CAF the first time, we'd like you to come and have a look at it because where we are at the moment is I know it's unconventional and disorganized in Pitcairn, but it's also an opportunity for you to get involved. in developing the damn thing and the habit as you want is that in many ways I mean obviously without having driven it you know the basic concepts that they fix in the technical regulations that the FIA ​​gives you but they were already coming We continue with the drawings for this and for the other and it was quite evident that this thing was going to be as strong as an ox.

You could tell by the way it was built, but you know we went about doing our thing when we got it up and running. I had to go to a place called Chateau Rooster in the south of France, yeah it's where all the Peridot car teams go and this place is really as tough as the Badgers' ass, it's horrible you know? And I mean, they just said, there's your car, go and break it, so now they've given you a new radical, so he said, Yeah, Colin McRae, but you know the conditions were bad. We will also give up Gaza with vodka.

You know this was a test and in some ways it's positive because In fact, very quickly we realized, Christ, this car is so strong, you know, besides damaging wheels and tires and stuff, you know, the car kept running, no. There were major technical failures, there was no damage to the suspension, there were no ball joints torn off, you know? this car just took it all and we're talking, you know, big concrete steps or rock steps and boulders everywhere and you know the car looked pretty shabby when we were done, but it kept going so that was positive or at least we knew it.

It wasn't going to let us down mid-corner, so we went to do our Monte Carlo testing, so we went to a place where we were on asphalt and you know the car wasn't right, there was no grip, it was handling very badly. the steering was terrible, you know, and I just said, listen, you know this car. I have a feeling that it's too difficult and they've done all the geometry and they've done their calculations for the spring settings and stuff and then we start talking about the springs. and he said, listen, it goes too far, you know, some of them said, well, it is what it is, so we said, well, let's go find some dry asphalt, so they had to go around France to try to find a road that they could.

I rented a place that had dry asphalt and the only place we could go was just north of San Tropez, so he came from the mountains to the seashore and we were on this country road and it was perfectly close to the Sun magazine, which is basically In Francois Delica's hometown, we were hitting this, but it was still like no, guys, you're wrong, this is too hard, so we had to go home for Christmas for a week and then we had to come back to leave before Christmas. where they managed to get some springs, some softer springs, so we started driving it in the same place in San Tropez and then you could feel it was going in the right direction because still the next thing it meant we had a fire and then the steering failed assisted. and then we found out that Jim caught fire and then damaged some of the wiring, so they said okay, we need more springs, we have to go softer again, what shocks did we get right, we have to work on them for Samson Rider or someone making them I don't know, I probably would have been there at the time, the springs were a bathroom, but they were just doing them based on what they told me and they said so right before we have to fix this. power steering, so we went home for Christmas and then I think it was Boxing Day when we flew back, when someone had been paid a fortune to make more springs, the team had put in new wiring and fixed the power steering and we started again, so we had a bigger selection of much softer springs, suddenly the car started running, but you know, we had some slight technical problems, so when we got to the new year we did a little more testing at the beginning of the new year, we went straight to the reconnaissance, so we did the reconnaissance and he showed up in new rally cars with all the springs as we had set them up, so we entered this first stage, which was 50 kilometers they started near the hollow on a very icy and snowy stretch of road, but then it was only for the first ten kilometers until this call, then the asphalt was practically dry and wet for the rest, so we used slick tires, so within the first 500 meters.

Didier Auriol was there Carlos was out in a corner there's someone else so we're just going around on ice and we stopped going around that corner yeah we really turned off the Handy Lag and it was a matter of keeping him on the road Then he started going up this hill after five and six. Kay's nobo suddenly felt that smell, you know, it's a crazy smell that tears us apart and we went a little further and then Christ got to the point, now we're drowning and there's smoke. waving out the back of this car, what the hell is this?

So we just have to stop. We had to get out of the car because we couldn't drive anymore. Open the doors. Look back and why we had done very little. The test mileage is especially tough and serious mileage, all the heat buildup in the exhausts and because they didn't have any heat protection on the body, it was burning off 400 lbs of paint on the back, so now We have to put out a fire in the back of the car, so we open the trunk, we do this fire act, of course, brother, then we have to throw it all away and get the dust and smoke out of the car and we go again, like this which we literally put a couple of K's on top. of that, we got to the top of this mountain and then we finished, we got to the end of the course of the stage that we lost and two and a half minutes or something like that and this was our first rally so far, so all the odds are above they. shy about what really happened and I'm there, but my notebook comes out as a couple of words go why the third delay there was a little technical problem that they didn't tell us, they didn't tell us that what I've done so few miles with the paint because I would be in the back of the car, but you know that's how it was at the time, you know we waited, that's the reality that we didn't have time to put all this time and effort into.

It was a tank but it was heavy, yes, and it was how underpowered you were. I don't know, I think you know man tune would do any engine at the time, but again, everything was happening so late, really you know, in theory, things should have happened at least 12 months before Collins, I mean, at the end of 97 they should have been testing this car and running it but as it was we were running it and tested it seriously from the start but what was the sequence of events for Monte Carlo to be the first match? What was the second round of that?

We finished last and we finished third and because that's how we did it, why do you split it? it had an illegal water pump with 40 less horsepower, they threw something connected to your engine at you, yes it was a water pump for something, it was electrically driven or something, no, it was belt driven, but it wasn't the standard bomb, okay, so we excluded, then we went to Sweden and then something happened in Sweden, we did almost nothing and we came home early and then we went to Africa, so now everyone thinks, Jesus, this is going to be a nightmare, so they have I had the nightmare of being excluded, they had a abandonment, yes, abandonment, and it was quite early and you go to the scariest track, anything like Jesus, what channel, okay, we knew it was strong, but yeah It was reliable and everything fell into place and we just controlled.

It was perfect, yes, we did not have any technical problems, we did notwhat what's the problem and said oh we have a little technical problem. happening here and maybe we're going to be a little bit last minute, so okay, so I left, Isis, he then went to time control, so what had happened? We had a junior engineer who the night before had been looking at the data of the car and there is a measurement where the clutches in terms of the clutch ratio and it was actually very good, but our media was being changed the night before the 45 minute service , but now, suddenly, you know that I've done the first two stages and Christ, this reading is now back to reality, this thing is at the limit it can overcome, but it can also retreat, you know, probably without clutch, now Of course, any experienced engineer would think 45 minutes. service that reads good, our media shift is correct, we're going to change the clutch guy, so get ready, but no, let it be when these mechanics, um, Armand was the number one driver, so he had the best of the group, although we were. in the middle of that and you know, we were their main driver, we had our same team of guys that we were happy with and there were a lot of good guys with us, but I think it was just panic, that's where the experience is with the stores retailers.

You can be a good mechanic, but if you can't handle the pressure, all that you know, all your skills, all these and these guys panicked, so when they had the clutch, it was built like a package and they went to put the package on the car and then they dropped the package and then they had to rebuild it as best they could and what they could see, so they put it back in the car, put the gearbox in and they couldn't put the gearbox back in, so now all of a sudden, they have to take out the gearbox again, take that touch, Paco, go back to the container, take another clutch and you know, no, but this time remember the cameras at this point, yes, now, at this point , now is the critical point.

So the camera was with me filming me and I said, well, we got Merle GL a minute ago and the car never showed up, so of course the cameramen came with me and we walked around the back and hid in the back of the restroom. I parked and used these guys and when I got there they were still working on the car throughout the service park there was no spectator there but right outside on the road where the cars come and go there was a Subaru that had been defrosted. you had Citroën, they were there, all the teams were lined up, you know, watching what was going on, so these guys finally came in with the gearbox bolted on, put the wheels on, dropped the car, the mechanic started it, the car started it. dropped it in reverse, pushed it back in the First I returned it to service, at the point and all these guys were clapping like hell, you know, um, I burst into tears, yeah, and I think a lot of these guys did too and now I'm there reliving this, but you know, these poor people.

The mechanics were crying but for the wrong reason and they couldn't hold it in there. Everyone went to the back of the service park. They were in these containers. There was stuff lying everywhere because the poor guys were pushed into a position where they probably should have been. It wasn't first, it went wrong and this was the best result the skilled ax would have left by the way, but it was an incredible story, it was actually the fact that you didn't finish second or third. it doesn't diminish the quality of the story no, no, no, but you did it, well we did it, we went straight from there, we came to GB and we told the press guy from Czechoslovakia, we said, listen, you know, we just need to let you .

Learn how these press conferences have worked in the past. What we suggest to calm down what happens at the rally because it will be absolutely mental; otherwise we will have a dedicated press day on Monday or whatever the week before the rally. and we do it in London, we normally book the hotel, we book these people, they worked it out well, we went, we did this press day and they had column inches like they had never experienced before and we got to the rally and they were still frantic at the rally because now that we were back, you know the people outside, the flags and the cheers and everything else, and this press guy, the main press guy from Czechoslovakia, was shaking his head and said, Nick, he said, Skoda has been participating in this rally for 26 years.

He said that we have been involved in the world champion for I don't know how long He said that what happened in this rally has completely destroyed the last 26 years of the current BR that we have done He said I can't say it How positive I am, you know, and as it was, it was a difficult rally because I came back to GB and of course it was the death of Michael Park, yeah, and you know it was a bit of a sad rally from that point of view. but you know people didn't care, it didn't matter if Colin was back, you finished, we did, yeah, I don't remember we finished in the top, anyway, top six or something weird, yeah, weird thing, that's the only one.

I did that rally, I did it in a group at Fiesta, the first time that a group owned yesterday we were talking about what we were doing there, I don't know, so we had to fight, yes, because I said: "you want to do it", make a great story and I went. I have no experience and we did an art course with a bass course and we did the woodpecker, I think we then turned up and did it in this Malcolm driving the car. I have the book. I have everything. the m-sport books and I have a results sheet that says that and my name is on the same page it's your name and my Treasure is in my little Bible nothing but it's in my little desk drawer and it says my name and the name of Richards and I always remember that they told us that Michael Park had passed away and that we were so far away that part of Martin was not there yeah, we were so far away in the race a little bit that you didn't even get off, that they told you to leave and then We staggered to do that Mickey Mouse kind of thing in the stadium at the end, yeah, and we had faced each other, I mean, we won our class, I think it was for them at the beginning, but in the end there were two of us. and there was a lovely Japanese couple with cutesy Yoshi, they were both called Yoshi Yoshi and Yoshi in a civic and this was the best thing they had ever done, they didn't speak any English and we will separate the car he dropped off for us.

I was in the stadium and it was dead, no one wanted to do anything, it was a horrible atmosphere, yeah, yeah, but Yoshi and Yoshi had been waiting 20 years to do this and bless them, they were cheering by jumping in their car there at this and There was a totally empty stadium with their principals taking photos when the strangest thing I've ever seen was these two Japanese people going crazy pretending the stadium was full, but of course it wasn't, it was terrible, it really was a very strange event, yeah , it was. A sad ending, especially being in Britain and being a local driver as well, you know, and that was what we thought was the last one, but there were

talks

that took off and you know, Skoda we're going to cut back and they were going to retire the world .

Championship, but then I think David Richards was involved in a conversation to say, listen, do you realize what you've got here? Do you realize what you can do? and you know they talked about doing a serious development and engineering project to take it away from him. Czechoslovakia and stuff, you know and you know, we thought maybe there's a chance that this whole thing could be revitalized and we hope you know another two or three year run just like song song and then that would be it, but they do, I think the The directors had already decided that it was the end and had made a deal with Arman to take the team's cars and everything and he made his own rival from Red Bull. team that only lasted 12 months and that was the end, so this is already the longest postcard we have ever done, by a factor of three.

I think it's been absolutely fantastic and just a few things, first of all, Colin McRae. The name was obviously so ridiculously popular in the United States that people didn't realize it was a real person, yeah, and then with the X-Games situation, you know he arrived face down in a stadium, I mean , all that was absurd in some ways was No because he was a very quiet person to talk to, but the things he did in the car were outrageous, yeah, it was cool that they asked him to do that and I think it all came from Silver America, they basically drove it. and they did it and without fear, the clothing came and sponsored us, you know what perfect sponsor for the color, absolutely brilliant, you know, a lot of people just saw what happened in that football stadium, you know, they took seats with wheels in a On the opposite corner they took another row of seats and built these big ramps to get in and out, but we had a full rally a day north of Los Angeles, so when we got there, you know they gave us these notes from the organizers and It was a completely opposite numbering system to Colin's, so I said to the guys, listen, you know, can we take these notes?

Can I reverse the numbers so that at least the numbers relate to what Colin is doing? And I told them, you know, I'm not looking to modify all of them. What I'm going to do is revert everything that's on the page and I said I can come back here before I start in the morning and you can choose whatever page you want and you can verify that it's exactly as it is. They said it would make it much safer for Colin to be able to drive that way, so they allowed it. We went and did the first stage and the notes were a bit strange, they weren't like they were supposed to be, so Colin. he said what do you think we should play this, he said oh let's drive and see how we do, so we did the first stage and Travis Pastrana was pretty quick to be right when we finished the stage, he said how do we do it? when I can remember exactly but I said it only took 11 seconds in the office, he said okay, that's that, that's it, so we moved on to the next stage and he said, I said, I said it would take, were you going to try a little harder? .

He said yeah, I'm going to push a little bit here and look at all the notes, so we did that stage, you know, and all of a sudden, there was another five or six seconds because the notes weren't the best, so he said okay, so I had a short stage now that I think we were using twice, but it was short but incredibly fast, but it was tight with short fast corners that you couldn't see, but it was six and five in these notes, so we got there. Then all of a sudden the first time he took about ten seconds to Travis Pastrana.

The second time, they both took another few when we got to the stadium and I think we were about a second behind him when we got there, we finished the rally, so we moved the camp there and we have returned to Los Angeles and we are ready to do this super special, so we took a look and did a recce and the rest just had our part time so we started at the top of the ramp. corner five four three two one go down the ramp and straight down into this literally a jump with a little ravine with a landing area so you're committed to jumping it so he made the jump and landed on the hairpin of the A couple of motorcycle moguls come up this ramp on the other side and now we're in the ugly parking lot outside doing all this stuff and I always remember this damn American's comment saying God, it's well, this guy is I did a couple of runs on pavement, Jesus, but he's driving beautifully, just clipping the apex at the hairpin, there was a beautiful opening across this parking lot, you know, very committed and we backed off a second, two seconds , we returned to the stadium and we think we were. about three and a half seconds up, so now we're going to jump up this ramp and then onto this ramp at the bottom, so what you thought about the hairpin after this jump is pretty important, so on takeoff you just hit a bit of attitude, so when the car took off, it was already going sideways but it landed on the left front wheel, bounced once, bounced up and bounced again, then it had taken the tire off the rim, so now the The tires were stuck and the car overturned.

I'm feeling the G-force now and the cars passing by I thought, oh this will be fine, we'll land on our wheels, I barely thought the first throttle speed was backwards, going through the air, this was coal, I knew it exactly. what was happening, so I was ready for it, there was no waiting for it to land as soon as the car on its wheels releases the clutch and we go, now we drag this car with the left front punctured, so it was not bad in a pair. of corners but there was a right turn where you know we had a round of Scrabble and anyway we lost to Travis Pastrana by about a second and a half after we rolled, now they could go and you were right, they thought colin mcrae it was just a fictional character that he was what was Lara Croft's name, yeah, he was, yeah, yeah, and you know, all of a sudden, this accident was on the national news at six on two channels, I think in America, it which is like for asponsor that without fear, they couldn't believe how.

He was brilliant and suddenly Colin McRae was like a whole new person, it's really incredible, what a driver he was, but that was him, you know, and I think you know the world of rallying that you know is probably quite interesting. worse because we sure as hell don't have Colin McRae and I think while he's no longer with us I think Colin McRae's legacy will certainly live on forever, yes I agree and I think I even strongly doubt it's a hashtag that was I used it a lot when we showed that movie a couple of weeks ago.

I never had a response to a film Neil and I produced on the internet or on Top Gear. Now, for four or five years, the answer was It's extraordinary how far this smooth-talking Scots guy has gotten into his motoring bullshit. He is simply the best driver here. I think everyone wanted to be able to drive the way he drove because he was so exciting and I wasn't. I know, I think you reach an age where you start to see life differently, maybe just maybe the fatalist in me thinks that some people were supposed to shine brightly for a shorter period instead of shining less for a long time, maybe that's what colleagues label well. this planet Wars I don't know what one of his other sayings was I'm here for a good time not for a long time you know and it always surprised me that when we flew with him in his helicopter he says no Don't mess with this stuff, it's bigger and better than I, you know, and lo and behold, that's what really killed him in the end, yeah, you know, when he had a lot of respect for a helicopter, so it just goes to show.

I don't know, but from my point of view you know, if we're going to end this with something, then I guess I want to say you know I've had a great career with a lot of wonderful drivers, you know? At the end of the day, the Colleen years were probably the best of my career and I think that's a proud thing to look back on. I think it was such an incredible experience that you sat next to that man, right? He's nice man and now you're sitting here in an amazing building with a wonderful sales business God knows how many steel helmets someone is involved in motorsport knows you Nicky you're always around but but what I'll say and I'll have the last word here this doesn't happen to you often you have a unique ability to express yourself and the things you have done and thank you very much for doing that and the things you said about it The movie was worth reflecting on and this has been without a doubt the best podcast never done, so thank you very much, a pleasure, thank you all, thank you for listening to them.