The magic men: Memories of two legends
With memorial rallies running for both of Britain's late World Rally Champions, Colin McRae and Richard Burns, we thought it a good time to ask their respective co-drivers, Derek Ringer and Robert Reid, for their top-five best and single worst moments alongside the best of Britain
Derek Ringer's good memories of McRae
Trossachs Rally, 1988
This was the event where we were fighting for the Scottish Championship. This was the last round. We were in a two-wheel-drive Sierra Cosworth and David Gillanders was in a Metro 6R4. We didn't really stand a chance; it was a real four-wheel-drive rally, really frosty and shitty weather.
The wind-ups were going before the start. We had (fellow competitor) Murray (Grierson) carry our spare wheel in the back of his car and Murray was ready to stop at any stage to help us. We made sure David knew about this. Murray was running third on the road, David was second and we were first. Being first on the road wasn't best in the conditions, so we went and hid before the start. In those days, there was penalty-free lateness, so Colin and I didn't turn up at our allocated time. David could have waited for us and eventually forced us to go ahead of him. He didn't - he went into the stage, pissed off. He took a tree stump out after about three miles or something like that. He was out. We drove past and that was that - we were champions and we didn't even need the help of our flying service car behind us!
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