How The Brits Ruled

Colin McRae and Richard Burns bossed the Safari 20 years ago.

- David Evans

Rewriting history was nothing to Colin McRae and Richard Burns. It’s what they did. But it wasn’t very often they got together and worked on a page at the same time. Twenty years ago this month, they did just that.

In March 1997, McRae and Burns finished one-two on the Safari Rally. First time that had happened in Kenya; first that had happened in the 24 years of the World Rally Championship. Burns would win the Safari 12 months later. The Englishman’s patient approach would serve him well in East Africa – he won again in 2000. The bigger surprise came from McRae. The swashbuckling Scot was always a threat on shorter events, but Colin winning the Safari? A marathon not a sprint? It appeared fanciful 20 years and one month ago. Yes, he’d won the Acropolis the previous season, but he’d only competed on the Safari twice previously – and one of those was a promo drive in Subaru’s city-dwelling Vivio.

But there he was, topping the podium after a sensationally controlled drive to bring his Subaru home seven minutes ahead of fellow Brit Burns and his Mitsubishi Carisma GT (a rebadged Lancer E4).

Technically, it wasn’t the first win for a British – or Scottish – driver on the Safari. Bert Shankland won in 1966 and 1967, but he did so under a Tanzanian licence (he was working there at the time). He was actually a Peugeot 404-driving Scotsman.

McRae’s win and one of British rallying’s finest moments was crafted on the road to hell. Officially known as Competitive Section 5, Elburgon, the 96-mile test ran northwest of Naivasha and just south of the equator. And it was hell on a stick.

McRae’s co-driver Nicky Grist remembers it well.