They gather in the intermittent rain to pay homage to the horses. Families, gaggles of teenagers, middle-aged men with a youthful twinkle in their eyes, dreaming of what might have been if they had bought that damn car instead of the bungalow. The common bond – petrolheads one and all, writes Michael McAleer, Motoring Editor
Punchestown, that monument to McCreevy, is hosting a Sunday race festival, but the horsepower is courtesy of Ford and Peugeot not Godolphin or Coolmore.
The Punchestown Rally Experience is a four-kilometre stage run around the course on a mix of tarmac, gravel and dirt. Present are Peugeot World Rally Championship (WRC) driver Freddy Loix, leading a host of other Irish and international drivers.
Our chariot is a 2003 WRC Ford Focus RS built by M-Sport, owned by Austin MacHale and loaned for the day to Alister McRae, son of legendary Scottish rally driver Jimmy McRae and brother to former champion Colin. MacHale’s confidence in McRae is a comfort – the car is worth around €330,000 and due for the Isle of Man the next day.
The McRaes are the Celtic rallying equivalent of the Schumachers. Jimmy was a seventimewinner of the Circuit of Ireland and regularly won the British Championship. Colin was youngest ever World Rally champion. Alister, a former British rally champion has competed in WRC with Hyundai and Mitsubishi and now races a Subaru Impreza in the Group N production car section.
The McRaes clearly love to rally. It's a family passion. The day before he arrived here Alister took part in a local Scottish rally, competing against his father and brother. Jimmy won.
To business . . . Alister McRae's soft accent is welcoming as we take shelter from the fine mist. "It'll be a wee bit slippy out there today. But sure no bother." If he's not bothered, neither am I – at least that's what I tell myself. He takes some last-minute tips on bends, complains about the stuffiness of the car, then belts himself in. We're not so much belted
into the car as bolted onto the seat. It's so tight it's hard to breath. I'm now as much a part of the car as the door handle.
The RS is stripped bare. What panels remain are graphite or fibreglass, apart from the black crushed velvet dash. McRae assures us this is not a kitsch fashion statement made from one of MacHale’s old suits. Velvet doesn’t reflect sunlight – "the last thing you need going into a hairpin bend is the dash reflecting on the windscreen."
Elsewhere the bare metal gives way in the middle to a flat panel of buttons for everything from wipers to stopwatch – and radio controls to keep in touch with the service crew. In front of the navigator a small information panel relays all time and distance data. Even the horn is the responsibility of the navigator (or co-driver as they are also called) – a small button on the footplate can be hit with your right foot.
The driver drives and the co-driver does the rest. Some compare the driver/codriver relationship to golfer and caddie, but it doesn’t quite get it. If a caddie gets the distance wrong the golfer ends up in the rough, but a misunderstanding between driver and co-driver could put both in the morgue.
McRae has had the same co-driver for most of his racing life. "You have to fully trust your co-driver or there’s no point. When he reads the pace notes to you, you trust him completely. If not you’ll quickly start to drop back."
As co-driver, I’m about as much use to McRae as a bag of cement. Luckily Punchestown is more about spectacle than points or prizes. In fact there are no prizes for drivers. McRae is here as a favour to the organisers – Marko Martin ruled himself out after a 170 kmh shunt in Argentina.
Yet these drivers don’t like to lose face in front of a grandstand of rally fans. So, when we stall on the line, McRae’s jocular manner switches to a mixture of embarrassment and anger. The full explosion of power strikes only as we snarl into gear. The first corner is on us in seconds but McRae doesn’t let up, throwing the car around the bollards as if he’s reaching out and pushing it around himself.
It’s the sort of cornering only Matchbox cars manage in the hands of three year-olds – direct 90-degree turns. You feel the car could do a full 360-degree somersault if McRae so desired. The jolting motion, as we’re flung forward and back with the braking motions, soon teach us to appreciate our harness.
McRae shows his class. We’ve ridden with several wannabe racers in our time, but the sheer skill, poise and handling of this gangly Scot separates blind bravado and true talent.
On a road no wider than a bike lane we barrel along between haystacks and – more frightening – through open gates, a hair’s breath from the large immovable posts. Slipping on wet loose gravel, he still manages to keep things under control, flicking through the gears with the large semi-automatic lever on the steering column, each twitch accompanied by a sudden jerk as yet more power is offered to the wheels.
He’s concentrated but calm. As we take flight over a blind hump he tells me he’s only been around the track once so far but in his job you learn to memorise twists and turns very quickly. As we wind our way over the final run of the stage, I seek some explanation for his expertise. What is the art in this? "I’m drivin’ with ma backside," he explains with a look of earnest honesty. So that’s the trick.