McRae memories and the legend of Chester Racecourse

It's 1995, on Wednesday November 22. Just after lunch.

Having battled our way out of the end of the Clocaenog East stage to see Colin McRae complete his final competitive yards not as a world champion, I implored my father to wind up his tired, filthy-dirty and RAC-weary Vauxhall Calibra one last time. We had to make it back to the finish. We simply had to. History was going to be made. And having endured four days of drama, we weren't going to miss McRae being crowned.

We arrived too late to get into the Racecourse car park, so we ditched the car underneath some shifty-looking railway arches and legged it. We made it. Just.

There he was: Colin McRae, World Rally Champion, 1995. Then came the team picture, the champagne, the trophy and, finally, the donuts. It was an unforgettable memory. And last Sunday (August 9) it all came flooding back.

Last year, 1,086 Subarus drove from McRae's hometown of Lanark to Prodrive headquarters in Banbury. The McRae Gathering raised £53,000 for the Colin McRae Vision in those two days of motoring. Last Sunday, the organisers handed over the cheque to Colin's dad, Jimmy. And the choice of place couldn't have been better. The Racecourse.

For a generation of rally fans, The Racecourse means only one thing: November 22, 1995. It was so special to finally see a Briton standing on top of the world. That it was the swashbuckling, Spaniard-defeating super-heroic Scot we had all taken to our hearts just made it all the sweeter.

Since leaving Chester all those years ago, it wasn't really a place I'd been back to. The RAC moved on, so did Colin and so did the rest of us. But when that second world title didn't come, and instead of it an enforced retirement did, Chester became all the more important. Then a couple of years ago next month, that afternoon became the most cherished and poignant of memories.

Passing the Northgate Arena on my way back into the city 14 years on, was like hitting the rewind button. I'd never known so many people and so much noise in scrutineering. I swear, if the officials had failed McRae's Subaru, they wouldn't have made it out alive that day.

The hotel serving as HQ, now known as the Crowne Plaza, will always be the Moat House to us. I took my family in for lunch last week - and then bored them silly with a tour of what had been the press office that year. I even stood at the small accreditation desk in the corner. Just for a moment. Just for the fever.

But nothing had prepared me for the rush of emotion of seeing the stretch of concrete car park where McRae had spun his champagne-soaked Impreza 555 so viciously that late autumn afternoon. That really caught me off guard.

Or I thought it had, until Jimmy fired up L555BAT at the end of an emotional speech.

Lazily, ever so lazily, cylinders begrudgingly woke from their slumber. Since making history with McRae in 1995, this car has not been over-worked. The moment, it seems, was not lost on the old girl, though. Eventually, she came around. And that was it. We were back where we'd started. The finest of the 300-plus flat-fours in the place was singing its song again. It's just a shame - and no disrespect meant here, Jim - the right feet weren't playing the pedals.

That was when the emotion of this thing really socked me between the eyes. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed that noise, that car and that moment. Typically, at the time, it hadn't meant as much as it should have. It was assumed there would be plenty more world titles to come. But that event, the 1995 RAC would always be a belter.

Colin McRae and Derek Ringer (Subaru Impreza 555) leads the 1995 Lombard RAC Rally © LAT

As a precursor, there had been Colin's snarling, dustbin-kicking agreement to team orders in Spain and then came the rally. The rally he couldn't lose. He stopped and changed a puncture in Kielder. No problem. Endured front-right suspension problems - fixed with a log. No problem. And won the rally. No problem.

In the background, a nation of rally fans did the worrying for him. Not least, my father and I.

Having landed a press pass - and subsequently offered a provincial newspaper a more in-depth rally report than it would have ever dreamed of (or indeed had any use for) - dad and I chased from stage to stage, service to service.

Mid-way through the event, somewhere on rally route in Wales, we were stuck in traffic when a Scottish youngster jumped out of a fairly beaten-up, mud-coloured Citroen ZX. He ran up to my window and asked if he could follow us to the next stage. They had lots of Irn-Bru, but no maps onboard.

"We're following McRae..." he ventured.

"Ahh, right," I replied.

"He's a mate. He stays near us at home."

"Ahh, right," I replied.

"We'll follow yoos, then."

"Okay."

As I wound the window up, dad was chuckling a knowing chuckle. "I think every Scot is a friend of McRae's this week," he said.

Being on a rally route, we'd had a few of the leaders passing us already: Carlos Sainz's Subaru, Bruno Thiry's Escort Cosworth.

But then, astonishingly, Subaru number four pulled up behind us - and alongside the ZX.

The drivers' door opened and McRae and the three incumbents of the Citroen chatted for two or three minutes before the traffic lights went green and McRae was away. On the wrong side of the road.

The level of respect for the motor behind went through the roof. We arrived at the next stage and assured the marshal on the gate the people behind were enormously important journalists who'd had their passes nicked and couldn't possibly be relieved of the £10 gate fee. They were duly waved in. A couple of stages later and our new best friends were still with us. Sitting on the bank in Sweet Lamb, shortly after watching McRae - by extension our new best mate - move into the lead of the event, one of the three uttered the unbelievable.

"We've had a word, why don't you come back to the motorhome in service tonight?"

Colin McRae and Derek Ringer celebrate winning the Lombard RAC Rally and the 1995 World Rally Championship © LAT

This was all getting a bit silly.

But, there we were. My father and I sat in Colin McRae's motorhome the night before he became world champion. I remember being rigid with fear, unable to speak, let alone accept the cup of tea on offer. I had to get out. In fairness, dad was pretty much the same. So, having trousered a couple of Tunnocks tea cakes, we made our bizarre excuses and bolted for the door. Dad was first through and, being unused to the flimsiness of motorhome doors, threw it open with a degree too much gusto. McRae, on his way in, was almost floored.

We couldn't get out of there quick enough.

The next day, Colin's mates trailed us for the final day - all the way back to Chester, in fact. But, while they revved up for the post-event party, dad and I revelled in the magic and majesty of what McRae and Derek Ringer had just done. And four of the most unbelievable days of our lives.

On Sunday, that story came back like to life. And the noise helped. Briefly losing myself in the moment, my daughter brought me back, with the kind of wisdom which only a three-year-old can muster and deliver with pinpoint precision.

"It's just a car, daddy," she said. "Just a car with lots of colours."

With one last glance to the stands, filled on that fabulous and unforgettable Wednesday, we crossed the road for a Moat House sandwich. An hour or so later and Chester was quiet again. For a while, the city walls had rocked to the beat of the boxer engine.

Quiet or not, the legend of Chester Racecourse will live on.