September 15th 2007 saw the tragic death of Scottish world rally champion, Colin McRae, his son Johnny, the boy's friend Ben Porcelli and Graeme Duncan, when his helicopter came down near McRae's home in Lanark.
On the helicopter that day, we lost a legend, but most of all, we lost four souls, Colin, his five year old son, Johnny, and two family friends, Graeme Duncan,37 and Johnny’s six-year-old friend Ben Porcelli.
While an investigation could not find a definitive reason for the crash McRae was blamed for low flying, no fault in the helicopter itself was found but not ruled out.
The funeral for Colin and Johnny took place on 26th September at Daldowie Crematorium near Glasgow.
A “Celebration of Life” service took place at St Nicholas Church in Lanark on Sunday 30th September crowds of around 15,000 gathered outside the church, Martin Hewins, McRae’s personal bagpiper for many years, played Flower of Scotland as the family arrived for the service.
Friends of the pair shared poems and anecdotes from the McRaes’ lives. After the service, Colin McRae’s widow, brother and father bowed and applauded the crowds who had gathered outside to pay tribute to the McRaes. (As seen in the pic)
In November 2008 he was posthumously inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
In January 2015 an extraordinary 30-mile convoy of Subarus smashed into the record books in honour of the rally ace. An estimated 1100 Subarus drove from his home town of Lanark in Scotland to Prodrive’s HQ in Banbury, Oxfordshire.
Colin’s dad, Jimmy McRae led the Scooby convoy on its nine-hour and 300-mile pilgrimage. At Prodrive, 1086 cars spelled out Colin McRae to qualify the event for a new Guinness World Record. The previous record for cars spelling something out was 800 cars.
Just goes to show there are some pretty weird world records out there… But it’s hard not to be impressed by an event that raised nearly £40,000 for charities supported by our first and only world rally champion to date.