This is our sport.
Keep the river on your right, follow the road to the left. That’s Kolksele. Onwards. Past the farms, the barns and bales. Straight across the junction, back to the woods.
Into the trees at 120mph.
It’s sundown on Saturday and, as the last of the day’s light sinks into the horizon, our world shines brighter than ever. This is where the magic happens. It’s why fans walk for miles, sleds packed wood to build fires taking the edge off the chill of -30C. But still, the cold dives deep to freeze your nose, turning eyelashes to icicles.
The expectant chatter quietens. Stops. Everything stops.
It’s started. The revs rise and fall, the noise draws near, then fades as the world’s fastest rally cars make their way across the deep-frozen vistas of Sweden’s far north. Headlights slash their way through the darkening skies and then, in an instant, the noise is upon you.
And you stand. And you stare.
How is this possible? How is this possible?
The easy reach is the analogy of the road with the ice rink: You couldn’t stand up on that road…
Yes, you could. But you couldn’t walk on it.
And yet here, before our very eyes, cars of the same silhouette as our daily drive have danced their dance at speeds which make no sense.
This is our sport.
Dive inside and the arts darken further. Blink. Blink again. But listen. And listen hard. The drivers drive, their every action, their every instinct tuned to the voice in their ear. The road straightens, the speeds rise, the co-driver’s voice quietens to the sound of silence. This is it. This is the moment.
Flat-out through the forest as frozen downforce hammers hundreds of seven-millimeter studs into planet earth, allowing science to make sense of this madness.
The voice is back. Authoritative. Urgent. The nose dips, the road narrows. The car pitches this way and that as the drivers finesse the fight to bring beauty with the beast.
And with that, we’re done. Everything slows. The car stops and these other-worldly gladiators from the woods open their doors to tell their tales. They smile, they scowl, eyes shine, brows furrow, but they’re as relatable as they are relevant.
What they do bends our minds and shapes their dreams.
There were new faces in the service park last week; the faces for the future of the World Rally Championship. Sweden put on a show for you, but this is just one story. One page. One chapter.
We came north from the mountains to the near-Arctic. Now, we go south to the plains of Africa to watch the cars dive between the Acacia, amid the curious gaze of the zebras, the lions and the tigers.
This is your sport. Welcome.
