As youngsters our Dad brought us into the fold and we embraced the culture like hungry pups on a fat nipple. Up the back of Clar chapel, inches from the graves, perched on a freezing-cold stonewall. Marshals in yellow bids blow their whistles and yell for people to get off the road. The first car to come around the corner is a wee Starlet, hammering on at a speed that is was never meant to do while picking up groceries from the car park at Dunne’s Stores. Followed by a black Opel Manta, spiting chips in the air from the back wheels and a fat lip stuns me for a second, a cool drip of blood mixing with the taste of adrenaline.
A while later and arses still numb from the cold there’s another stage down towards lough Eske. We park and walk along with the hoards of rally nuts. License plates from the North, from Mayo, Galway and Cavan, attracted to the thrill of speed in their wanna-be rally cars – Subaru’s and Twin Cams, old 3 series BMs and a souped up old-school-Supra.
We get a great spot where we might see a car roll on a high-speed natural chicane, so Dad says. The first cars come through cautiously, just nipping the green edges of the road, then the big boys come rallying through at blistering speeds. Modified and broken exhausts howl through the ears at deafening decibels and sure enough the back diff of a Twin Cam can’t control the power and she slides off, the driver barely straightening her up inches from a solid famine wall.
The blood in the veins of these men is like thick oil, lubricating their hot, over-boiling hearts. White knuckles, pace notes, adrenaline at full pump, eyes darting to see over the next crest, a special breed of evolved man, evolved from farm lads and mechanics, soon to be engineers. Men that consider a Massey Ferguson an alternative mode of transport.
Another day and my arse is still cold sitting on the wooden-slat seats of Mondelo Park. Will Gallop’s 6R4 is blazing around the place like a demented supersonic gnat. More than 420bhp ripping through the back wheels in a wee car based on your Granny’s Metro was complete insanity. Banned from group B rallying years ago and found a new home on the rally cross circuit. Along with old RS 200s, Audi Quatros and Lancia Delta Intergrales.
We walk through the infield to warm up; Josie McCloskey has a funny hat on, looks like a tire warmer and big Pat Johnson is cracking another joke and Jimmy is egging him on. Dad and Derek are watching a pit crew re-treading tires as it looks like it’ll be wet.
We had to leave the house at five this morning to get down here in time for the qualifying. The big 5 series BMW was redlined all the way out of Donegal, across the Petigo Road, never under a hundred through Fermanagh and up to 150 through Cavan. A few years later on the Virgina Road a wee boy would be killed and the cops would put an end to the speed too late.
The drive down had been as exciting as some of the driving that day, until Gollop celebrated his win by doing donuts on the manicured grass in the in-field. Totally maddened the folks in charge as they called out over the loudspeaker system for other drivers to refrain from doing the same, but the crowd was going wild. Grass roosters were shooting twenty feet up the air as he ploughed the field with his Metro.
The night before the Birmingham motor show we drove down to Dublin in the Pajero and Dad got pulled over on the Virginia Road and when the young Garda asked him if he knew how fast he was going he said “No” and the cop said “86mph” and Dad stupidly replied “I didn’t think she would go that fast” and the cop said “That and plenty more.” Then he gave the whole people dying on roads speech. Dad had a silly grin on his face ‘cause he knew he was in trouble.
The next day in Birmingham as we walked through the parking lot of the NEC admiring all the fancy cars, a security man came up quietly behind us ready to apprehend the three of us! We had to quickly explain that we were just car enthusiasts and we’re on our way into the show. He looked at us like he didn’t believe us, but after a long awkward moment he let us go and just told us to not look so obvious, especially with those Northern Irish accents, must have thought we were a bunch of terrorists! So off we went to hear Jeremy and Tiff do their car stand-up routine.
Will Gollop was in there to meet us in his usual black, red and gold livery, but this time plastered all over the body of a wide body Peugeot 306, a total beast of a machine. He was putting around 600hp down around the track, setting a pretty amazing pace. Then came a whole herd of blue Scoo-barus with 555 logos and the essential gold wheels. I think wee Colin McCrae was behind the wheel of one of them, years before he would become one of the most famous men in racing with video games based on him, bags of world titles under his kilt and a persona that made you wanna be him flying through a forest road with NO FEAR. Like many bright stars, his burned out early, fecking helicopters.
Back in ‘88 or ‘87 his Dad, Jimmy, battled Bertie Fisher in their near identical blue and white Sierra Cosworths in the Circuit of Ireland. Our hometown of Killybegs was a stopping point for them and Derek and I were in car-porn heaven with all the mad rally cars parked in the town. That weekend was the first time I saw a real M3 in the flesh, or a Cossie for that matter. I stared at them in awe, as a French farmer might a UFO if he found it in his asparagus patch. I reached out and touched them, slid my hand over their big rear spoilers and could still feel the heat radiating off their exhausts. These were the fantasy machines that only existed on telly or in a magazine and now here they were in fish-stinking-Killybegs. A visit from the Pope would have extracted less revere from me.
You don’t see the likes of them anymore, only an EVO or STI can instill that kind of passion in a young boy’s heart these days. I’ll glance at a Ferrari when one passes me, like once every three months on average, it’s the least appreciation I can give a piece of art. But five or six Scoobie and EVOs could pass me in a single day and I’ll stop and stare, crane my neck, nearly run off the road looking at them every time, much to the annoyance of my wife “Jesus Christ, just dive!” You know when archeologists and the like find some fish off the waters of Africa that they thought had been extinct for millions of years, but then it’s in some fisherman’s net, a living fossil, well, that’s kind of what EVOs and STIs are. Supras and Celicas are gone, M3s have become soft luxury cars. The last of a dying breed, I lament and paraphrase; Where Have all the Good Cars Gone.
Richard Burns died not long ago, McCrae is driving the big gold wheeled Subaru in the sky. None of the newer drivers make me wanna use their name in my head when I’m driving. We, the rally breed, need new heroes and often in a time of need they come from the strangest place, like Krypton, but this time it might be America, the good old US of A. They aren’t known for their rally skills, but your man Pastrana having leaned his skills from McCrae knows how to fling a car around. And he’s got the youth and charisma to spawn an entire generation of rally half-breeds. The next day I’m trying to go sideways in my M3, I think I will be him in my head; fast, ferocious and fearless. Until my wife yells at me.
Maybe what I really need is to go on a man trip with Dad and Derek. Find some nice cold, soggy weather and stand around with my hands in my pockets for a ten second glimpse at the arse end of a Corolla Twin Cam. To stand among men who worshiped the back-wheel-drive diff of a carbureted, not injected, Twin Cam 16v. Men who after the races will drive home sideways, with death only a heart beat away.
