“He’s been dead a few times already…” Mads Østberg chuckles – his voice trailing off as the phone line is instead interrupted by a laugh from the man he’s talking about.
Evidently, there’s a serious undertone here. But the fact they can laugh and joke about it now shows it’s all worked out in the end.
Mostly, anyway.
“If you see our accident isolated, it wouldn’t be enough to break his career,” Østberg continues.
“But I think now, and as a result of the previous ones, I think wisely the doctors have told you Patrik to maybe go and do some safer things in your life if you want to remain a normal human.”
Patrik is Patrik Barth – a man faced with the reality that at just 33 years old, he may never sit in a rally car again.
But as we’re about to discover through our conversation with Barth and Østberg, this is far from unchartered territory for the Swede.
“The jaw was the only thing I had that I had not broken, but I broke it in the last crash,” Barth tells DirtFish. “Otherwise, every bone in the body has been crashed!
“Actually I was counting all the bones that have been broken and the funniest thing is my father has always bragged about the 126 bones he has broken. And now after my last crash, I think if I counted right, I have broken 131/132 bones.”
It’s said almost with a sense of pride – but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?
The relevance to all of this is the aftermath of a terrifying accident Østberg and Barth suffered at last July’s Rally di Roma Capitale.
Running wide on a left-hand corner, the pair’s Citroën C3 Rally2 smashed into a tree (that was not protected by a hay bale) directly on Barth’s side of the car – knocking him unconscious for a few minutes and breaking his jaw and hip among other minor injuries.
As both crew members recovered, they had to miss the next round of their European Rally Championship campaign, Barum Rally Zlín. And Østberg – who was not as injured as his co-driver – pledged not to return to the stages until Barth was fit enough to join him.
But as Østberg begins what he hopes to be a title-winning campaign in the ERC at this weekend’s Rally Sierra Morena, he’ll do so with Torstein Eriksen by his side.
It’s not that he didn’t want Barth in the car, but because he couldn’t.
As alluded to above, the accident in Rome was the latest in a long line of crashes for Barth, who used to be a motocross rider before he took up rallying.
Advice from his doctors has been to give up competition before he causes himself any irreversible brain damage.
“The crash itself last year… I mean it was not good, but it wasn’t like 100% that crash that ended it,” Barth explains.
“My past is filled with injuries, and quite bad ones, and after the crash last year it’s like I now have to pay the price for the life I had before I started with rallying.”
Østberg adds: “I think on your last accident in motocross Patrik, correct me if I’m wrong, but you spent one year in intensive care in hospital, right?”
“Yeah,” Barth confirms. “One and a half years in a wheelchair. So that was a proper one.”
It’s a situation that would be enough to floor most. Not once, but twice, Barth has had to accept the fact his dreams will not be realized.
“I wanted to be a world champion in motocross, but ended up in a wheelchair instead,” he says. “Then rallying came up, and I wanted to be a world champion in rally as well as a co-driver. Unfortunately I won’t manage it.”
But the very fact Barth has been able to survive all of this proves he’s made of strong stuff. Physically and mentally.
I see Patrik as one of the absolute best friends I have in my lifeMads Østberg
“You have to just take decisions and live after those decisions, and you can’t bury yourself just because of that,” he says.
“Because when I compete, I want to win, and if we should win, I need to be 100%. And now that I have two kids back home and everything, you need to also think about the family.
“And I don’t want my kids to be without their father.”
Some things just are not worth the risk. But it is to Barth’s credit that he is able to deal with the hand he has been dealt so maturely.
Although perhaps the blow is softened by the fact that Østberg, ironically, almost prompted Barth to retire from rallying four years ago!
“It was 2020,” Barth recalls, “and I was doing that season with Pontus [Tidemand] in WRC2. At the last event it was the guy that came first over the finish line, between Pontus and Mads, that was going to be the world champion.
“And Mads beat us, so I thought I should quit rallying – I was so f****** pissed! I told, like everyone I knew: ‘I will not be competing anymore, because I hate to be second!’.”
But a career spent sitting with the likes of Oscar Solberg and seven-time World Rallycross champion Johan Kristofferson was not wasted, and for 2022 Barth got in the car with Østberg.
The pair had previous, with Barth jumping in with Østberg for the Polish round of the ERC in 2017 and becoming a member of his gravel crew thereafter.
But what neither foresaw was how strong a bond they would build.
“I’ve been with many good co-drivers in the car and he’s definitely on the top together with a few others,” Østberg shares.
“I think often what separates the best co-drivers is just the different personalities and what you prefer, but I do see Patrik as one of the absolute best friends I have in my life. And that’s also something that’s really important when you spend so much time together.
“So I think as we have done the rallies over the last years together, we have sort of been in the same position, not only in the competition, but also in our personal lives, which has meant that we have clicked a bit differently than what I’ve done with other co-drivers in the past.
“We have so many similarities in our life and we understood our own challenges and we worked together on those challenges. At least for me, it’s quite important to have not only a sporting connection but also a personal connection with the co-driver.”
Barth adds: “I’ve been telling Mads a few times that if it weren’t for him, I would quit rallying. Just the feeling we both have in all our traveling around the world and in the rally car, it’s just amazing.
“Mads was speaking about the relation we have, for me it’s really special and the same for me and Mads is one of the absolute best friends I have, because we’ve been through… especially now after last year, we’ve been through so much stuff together.
“But the first year we were together, I became a father of my first child. So yes, that was a quite special feeling, and I share that feeling together with Mads. It made us come even closer together, so now Mads and the whole Østberg family is my family.
“It’s a really good friendship and it’s a nice family we have.”
It’s heart-warming stuff, which only makes the reality that the two can’t compete together all the more heart-breaking.
“It’s very hard,” Østberg admits. “And I think, to be honest, even though I’ve known, let’s say, the story of Patrik and that this accident on its own was not enough to put him in this position, still, sometimes, if you injure your friend somehow, it’s hard to accept.
“Of course, Patrik has been very supportive in that aspect in that he has been clear since the very first minute after the accident that it’s not my fault. It’s something we do together, but still, you know, the blame you take, it’s there and it’s hard to get rid of.
“So from that aspect, it’s been really hard. It’s also been hard to imagine going back to the car without Patrik and I think you and I [DirtFish] spoke about that when I was in Qatar [in February], and even at that point I hadn’t really decided if I want to do another year because I was so clear I wanted to come back with Patrik.
“I had maybe even a harder time than him to accept that he wouldn’t come back. So still when I call Patrik, even when I spoke with him yesterday, I asked him: ‘So when are you coming back to the car?’ So I will just continue asking him that question until it’s happening!”
(Barth laughs).
“But yeah, it’s been quite hard to accept,” Østberg continues, “and I think that’s maybe the only downside with having your best friend in the car: it’s hard to look at it just as a sportsman because it gets private and it gets personal. That’s what made it harder.
“But Patrik has been very supportive all the way, even though I knew I had to make the decision to carry on myself. Let’s say that if I was 25, it wouldn’t be a question if I was carrying on or not. I think it also has to be said that me and Patrik, we sort of agreed that we would go rallying together, and we will go together until we stop, and we will only do it when we enjoy and have fun.
“And that was our main ambition for the last three years, just to enjoy the trips, the places we are going, to fight for the rallies, to try and win rallies, and we would do it on our own terms, let’s say. So it’s not the end of the world for me if I stop rallying at this point. I do it simply because I love it and enjoy it and I struggle to see myself enjoying it the same way if Patrik was not there.
“So that was the hard decision for me in terms of continuing for myself or not. I hope we will still enjoy it, and I think we will as we have now decided to carry on. At least there are some good things that Torstein is back and Patrik has promised me to come to at least many of the rallies, to be there and to to join our evening dinners – which was one of the highlights for me and Patrik on every rally to find a good restaurant and to have a good meal!”
Given all of the complex emotions involved, what ultimately convinced Østberg to carry on?
“Well,” he pauses, “I think as much as I want to say that I’m doing it purely because I want to have fun and enjoy it, there is also a competition guy inside me who wants to win titles.
“I think also the hunger to try and win the ERC is definitely there as a motivation. That was obviously also the motivation for me and Patrik on top of enjoying. I think the common thing for us is that we are not enjoying it if we are not doing well. So to enjoy, we have to do well.
“And I think that’s the same motivation now; that I want to do well and I want to win more rallies and hopefully another title. And that’s, I would say, the main ambition at this point.
“But many times one feeling overshadows the other one, and one feeling was stronger for a long, long time, and then by the encouragement of Patrik and other people around me, the competition side has won.”
Barth is in full support of the plan, and is even helping train a co-driver who’ll eventually jump into the car.
“My plan is to, like Mads, do lots of coaching,” Barth says. “This year I will coach some Swedish guys, mostly in the Junior WRC.
“But then my plan is to go to a few ERC events as well and try to be there, especially for Mads. I can imagine for him to know that I’m in the service park and just being there and looking after him and giving him the things he needs, it’s quite important to have.
“I want to be there for him and give him my fullest support on each event and try to take care of him as my other family.
“Hopefully, I can help him to win the title this year.”
Theirs is a bond that can never be broken, even if their names won’t be together on the side of a car anymore.
“I’ve really had to think this through,” Østberg says. “It won’t be the same without Patrik, but I am delighted that he will still be around!”
