I’m currently researching some well-known rally names for an upcoming article. Looking through the various bulletin boards, trying to pick out the facts, it’s amazing just how high a regard some of these guys are held in, by people who never met them and never had to work with them. Fans are a funny bunch!
Talking to a friend of mine on the Costa Brava historic rally last week, he has worked with some of the great rally drivers, and says that they are not all grass roots enthusiasts made good; some of them develop horrendous ego inflation after they hit the spotlight. He told the story of a British rally hero (who will not be named here) who played the ‘boy done good’ to a tee for the TV cameras, but was a complete diva-esque pain in the rear to work with, to the point where none of the team spoke to him. Hard to reconcile that image with what we used to see on screen.
Rallying has been such an under-reported subject compared to F1, it’s hard to get info on the pilots, particularly the older guys. But we’re getting there, via talking to good people and retracing the steps of my heroes. The plot thickens…
Must be old-school Porsche pic time!
