FIA AFRICAN RALLY CHAMPION, 2007
| The WRC |
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There is no greater race than the race against time. That’s what the World Rally Championship is all about. It’s getting from a-to-b faster than anybody else on the planet. And the obstacles between a and b are enormously varied and quite extraordinary as the 15-round series crosses the globe, stopping off in each of its four corners. Each of the 15 qualifying rounds follows a straightforward, three-day format. In those three days, Conrad and his fellow World Rally Championship competitors will tackle 350 kilometres of flat-out driving on closed roads. Those 350 kilometres are broken down into sections of roads, timed to the tenth of a second, called stages. The driver who takes the shortest amount of time to complete all of the stages is the winner. Between the stages, the teams are allocated a set amount of time to make running repairs to the cars and all of the cars run on the same tyres and fuel. The World Rally Championship for makes was formed in 1973, but it was six years later that rallying really made its name – with the onset of the drivers’ title. Since then 16 drivers from eight countries have claimed the crown World Rally Champion. Each rally presents a competitor with a unique challenge. Starting from a sun-kissed harbour-side in Monte Carlo in January, the WRC takes the crews on a spell-binding trip through the frozen wastes of northern Scandinavia, where the drivers skate their cars over packed snow and ice at speeds approaching 200kp/h to the scorching tracks of ancient Greece, where those same cars are slowed to a crawl as they plot a course through the rockiest of rocky roads beneath a blazing summer sun. Each year, drivers set out from Monte Carlo full of hopes and dreams for the season ahead, but time after time those dreams can be turned to disaster in an instant as the toughest form of motorsport anywhere in the world takes its toll. For one man, a dream is realised after 15 rallies, for the rest there’s heartache and renewed hope for next year. |