{"id":189176,"date":"2018-11-21T12:26:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T12:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/opinion\/iconic-stages-and-motion-sickness-co-driving-rally-gb\/"},"modified":"2019-09-19T08:14:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T07:14:17","slug":"iconic-stages-and-motion-sickness-co-driving-rally-gb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/articles\/rally\/iconic-stages-and-motion-sickness-co-driving-rally-gb\/","title":{"rendered":"Iconic stages and motion sickness: co-driving Rally GB"},"content":{"rendered":"
When Tom Cary was asked to co-drive for Tony Jardine at Wales Rally GB, he jumped straight into the deep end<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI was panting,\u201d Nigel Mansell admitted afterwards. \u201cI was gripping the club as tightly as you grip a racing car steering wheel. I had first, second and third degree burns on the buttocks from petrol spillage in my first Grand Prix, but it was still a lot easier than this…\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mansell fluffed his first shot in the 1988 Australian Open, the ball \u2013 according to the late, great Ian Wooldridge in the Daily Mail \u2013 nearly taking out two spectators before settling near a wire fence.<\/p>\n
To his credit, he recovered to shoot a 77 in his first round and 86 the following day (he is, or certainly was, a bloody good golfer, Our Nige). But to be honest, the fact that he played at all was what mattered. <\/p>\n
Mansell may have missed the cut, but as a golf fan he had lived the dream. Just the experience of teeing it up in a big event, alongside big stars such as Ian Woosnam and Mark Calcavecchia, with a big gallery watching on, was what it was all about. Testing himself against the best.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare in any sport that amateurs can just walk in off the street and compete at the highest level. We\u2019ve all dreamed of being suddenly teleported onto the Wembley pitch to play for England, fooling ourselves that we could do a job (\u201cI could do have put that in!\u201d), or into Lewis Hamilton\u2019s cockpit at Silverstone, or the first tee at a Ryder Cup. But rarely, if ever, do these dreams become a reality.<\/p>\n
Tony and I even led Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen for a night.<\/p>\n
Some sports hold Pro-Am events, but they are more hit-and-giggle than serious competitive sport. Others create experiences for amateurs, trying to simulate what a professional would go through. The hugely popular L\u2019\u00c9tape du Tour, which sees thousands of cyclists every year take on the Tour\u2019s queen stage, is a good example (Alain Prost once finished 42nd out of 5000 riders, and 12th in his age group). But, again, that is strictly for amateurs.<\/p>\n
Unless you\u2019re mates with Greg Norman (which was Mansell\u2019s way in), or you have a lot of time\/money\/celebrity (see Usain Bolt\u2019s ongoing attempts to become a professional footballer), or you have serious talent and you\u2019re aiming to turn professional soon, it\u2019s unlikely you\u2019re going to get to rub shoulders with the stars, on their turf, at the same time.<\/p>\n
Rallying is a notable exception. You don\u2019t need any particular skill behind the wheel to co-drive.<\/p>\n
I must have known Tony Jardine, the Formula 1 pundit turned motor sport PR, for all of 30 seconds by the time he proposed strapping me into the passenger seat of a Subaru Impreza and tackling the 2010 WRC Sweden.<\/p>\n
Ever the opportunist, Tony had smelled fresh blood in his apparently insatiable crusade to scare the bejeezus<\/em> out of every motoring hack in the UK.<\/p>\n And having taken up the F1 reins at the Telegraph<\/em> just a few months previously, I didn\u2019t know any better.<\/p>\n That first campaign was a real eye-opener. While you don\u2019t need any particular skill behind the wheel to compete, this was the real thing.<\/p>\n So you do need to undergo a medical, including an ECG and an eye test before you can get a national competition licence from the MSA. You do need to do a minimum number of national rallies before you can apply for an international competition licence. You do need a car, a service team and so on. It requires a certain budget. You do wear fireproof overalls with your blood type sewn into the waistband.<\/p>\n