Thanks for the postive vibes guys! Viper, no worries, of course you believed it - that was what the director and writer wanted you to think, after all!
From my point of view, knowing what they shot, it just goes to show how much power the director and the editor has to make something like this say what they want it to, no matter what the reality.
You're right, it did kinda look like the room was a shrine to George Lucas, but if you go back and look at the video it's only, like two very brief shots, one of the ESB poster and another of a box of video tapes, so there's a big subliminal message thing going on there. If, say, they'd panned the camera all the way along my "poster wall", or along my DVD collection instead, it would have created a totally different mental image in the minds of the viewers. It's frightening to think how such a simple editorial decision has so much effect on what people think! :shock:
MPower - obviously there was a bit more to it than came out in the TV interview, but not very much! That's part of the reason why shows like this seem to be interested in me; it's not like I spent years karting or in club rallying before "making it big", it was video games one month, real rallies the next, and Rally Great Britain nine months later.
I'd had no prior "real" motorsport experience prior to visiting the school for the first time. I figured when I booked the session that I'd probably scare myself sh*tless, realise that gaming was so much easier than reality, and that would be it, but the opposite happened. The car control came really naturally, and the instructor refused to believe I'd never driven a rallycar before. Spent another day there, and then after a lot of looking around for a cheap deal, and saving up some cash, rented a production category car for my first rally.
From there, managed to get a bit of local sponsorship, and the season sort of built up momentum by itself without me ever really meaning it to go the way it did. The Rally GB is based here in Cardiff, and I'd always dreamed about entering it, so I did. The budget we had that year was tiny - probably less than the big teams spend on sandwiches, and we had a few technical problems with the car (primarily because we couldn't afford to buy new bits for it), but we kept it tidy and finished, when, as said on the programme, a lot of the big names didn't. Being able to say you've beaten Gronholm, Burns, Francois Delecour and Valentino Rossi is a cool thing to put on your CV no matter what the circumstances!
Why the WRC car? Well, a few reasons. First of all, because I quickly came to realise that sponsors and spectators don't care what a "Group N" car is, they want to see the cars that McRae and Burns drive, and the sponsors would much rather be involved with a car that can win, and get them on TV, rather than a car that comes 12th (or whatever) and doesn't get them any media coverage at all.
Secondly, because I was getting really ticked off with the relative fragility of the production car, and I could see that the extra strength of the WRC's would be a huge advantage, and would let me drive far more aggressively. I was also conscious that the "from video games to reality" story was already developing around me, and that going to a car like that so quickly would make the story even bigger (that Fifth Gear piece wouldn't have happened if I drove a Nissan Micra, for example!).
I'd also learned that, when it came to raising sponsorship, it takes about the same amount of work to raise a grand from a large company as it does to raise ?100 from a small one, so I started thinking bigger there, and the budget to run an older WRC car didn't look like it would be impossible to achieve, and so I started talking to potential sponsors about it.
It isn't easy of course, but that's part of the point. There's a lot of heartache and banging your head against a wall for everything good that happens. The whole thing here is that I'm a perfectly normal guy who got a break in a sport he's always loved, and believes he can compete with the best. It's a hell of a long way from where I started to where the top guys are, and I'm doing everything I can to close that gap - and getting things like the Fifth Gear gig are a big part of that. I hope there'll be plenty of people - whether it's computer gaming nuts, Star Wars fans, rally fans, or whoever (!
) who'll be interested in seeing how it turns out!
