The silence is punctuated only by occasional birdsong and the soft sound of the Reka river flowing alongside Zazidje.
Zazidje. It’s a road. Just a road. There was nothing special about it. Until the morning of Thursday April 13, 2023. Now, it’s a road the sport of rallying can never forget. It’s the road which cost Craig Breen his life.
Back in Zagreb for the first time since last year’s Croatia Rally, an event run in the immediate aftermath of the tragic accident, there was an opportunity to visit the memorial to Craig, unveiled by the event organizers on April 13 this year.
We wanted to pay our respects. We wanted to say another goodbye to somebody we’d all been fortunate enough to work with – and even more fortunate to call a friend. Heading north out of the town of Lobor, we were getting close. Conversation in the car quietened, there was a palpable sense of not wanting to get to that place. That corner.
And then we were there. Approaching from opposite direction to the way Craig had been traveling, it’s hard to get a bearing. But then it’s there: a bank covered in Irish tricolors, candles and messages of love, appreciation and sorrow. In the middle of it, the monument.
#42 In loving memory of Craig Breen
The scene simply takes your breath away. Words are not enough for a moment like this.
The birdsong fades and the flow of the river quietens. Silence.
The place looks smaller. The straight leading to the right-hander looks shorter. Pictures don’t tell the whole tale. The details don’t matter. The fact remains. But still, how? How in this corner? In this seemingly innocuous place?
Talking to Croatia Rally organizing committee president Daniel Saskin about the accident, he apologizes for his turn of phrase when he talks of a “peculiar tragedy”. But actually, he’s found precisely the right description.
Much of the wooden fence that the Hyundai collided with remains in place. What’s it there for? What’s the point of having a fence there? There is no point. And the cut on the inside of the corner, couldn’t Craig have just turned in a touch sooner? An inch earlier.
Stop it. You have to stop it. The anger rises at the agony of a life lost, a son and brother so precious. There’s simply no sense to it.
The monument is respectful. It’s as nicely done as these things ever could be. But this place, this corner, that memorial, it’s not him. Nothing here defines Craig Breen. He’s everywhere, in everything that good about this sport. Everything that makes you smile.
Sitting on the bank alongside Zazidje is just one picture of Craig. He’s smiling. He’s smiling his eyes shut. It’s one of a million moments where he was loving the best life he was living. Practising what he was preaching, he was having fun. If April 13 taught us nothing else, it taught us to do just that.
Life, indeed, can be very short.
