The Rally Co-Pilot

FHM’s motor-phobic Elizabeth Atkin travels to Sweden and finds out what the other bloke in a rally car is actually doing

I’m about to make my car-fanatic step-dad cry. Tears are forming in the corners of his eyes. Words are trying to come out of his mouth. I’ve just told him that I’m going to be co-driving for Kris Meeke at Rally Sweden.

“Oh my God,” he gushes. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And it’ll be on ice, too. It’ll be incredible. I’d kill for this,” he adds, a little too convincingly. “Whatever you do, don’t eat or drink anything before the drive.”

“Why?” I ask.

“They won’t be very happy if you vomit all over their car.” Honestly, I don’t even really know what a co-driver is, but now I’m nervous. There’s going to be vomit? How fast do these rally things actually go?

Pretty fast is the answer. A quick YouTube search shows cars speeding faster than my eyes can keep up with, the muffled sound of unintelligible car-talk. Like Web MD-ing yourself from mild headache to life-crushing brain tumour, I’ve put the fear of God into myself.

I arrive in Karlstad for Rally Sweden in the middle of February, when the country is nothing but a pile of snow, broken up by the occasional ice-covered road.

There, I meet Citroën driver Kris the night before the five-day World Rally Championship begins. I also meet Paul Nagle, the one man who can actually say he co-drives for Kris Meeke. They’re both Irish and they’re both… smaller than I expected. Later, I realise this is essential if you have any hope of fitting into the rally car.

“So,” I ask, “what does a co-driver actually do?”