I watched an interesting documentary on BBC HD yesterday evening:
Racing Legends: Colin McRae.
Olympic hero Sir Chris Hoy tells the story of Britain's first-ever World Rally Champion, Colin McRae. Along with Colin's father, Jimmy, himself a five-time British Rally Champion, Sir Chris visits the scenes of Colin's greatest rally driving triumphs.
From exploring Colin's roots as a Scottish trials bikes champ to driving the route of the Dakar rally over the dunes of the Sahara desert, Sir Chris will re-live McRae's career and be trained to drive sideways by another big fan - American Rally Superstar Ken Block. Sir Hoy's final challenge will be to swap his push bike for a monster Subaru Impreza world rally car on a rough and ready stage of the RAC Rally, the home of Colin's famous 1995 victory.
I have an enthusiasm for rally racing and McRae's contribution looms large over the history of the motorsport. This was an hour-long documentary fronted by Sir Chris Hoy (Olympic cycling champion who is also a long-time fan of rally sport). Hoy celebrated McRae's achievements, and we were treated to a chronological retelling of McRae's rise to world champion status. It was an exciting story and certainly illustrated the highs and lows of his career.
McRae died in a tragic helicopter accident in 2007. I never really knew much about that fatal accident, but the programme, to its credit, didn't flinch from the facts. The air accident investigation report into the incident certainly pulled no punches, leveling the blame for the accident pretty categorically at McRae himself, suggesting it was reckless piloting and pointless risk-taking that resulted in the crash which killed four people (including McRae himself), two of them very young kids (one of them his own son). All were passengers in McRae's private helicopter. The accident report also revealed that at the time of the crash McRae was unlicensed to be flying the helicopter.
MacRae was a known risk-taker - his rally career, punctuated with several spectacular crashes - gives ample proof to this. Even during the latter part of his rally career suggestions were openly made about whether he pushed too hard, took too many risks, perhaps even became obsessed with winning to the point of outright recklessness. And yet the programme insisted on glorifying the man, describing him as a man 'driven to win', a man who simply could not accept second place, who pushed harder, faster than anyone else. The Senna syndrome, I suppose.
The whole documentary left me feeling ambivalent towards McRae - a man I'd previously held in high regard. Now I'm not so sure.
See the documentary on iPlayer.