Rally - The debate

I don’t normally report or comment on funerals. It’s a time for family and friends to try and come to terms with such a terrible loss, but I see that other people have posted their own thoughts after yesterday’s Highland gathering. So I hope I can be forgiven for revealing one little tale from yesterday.

After the packed service (estimates vary around a thousand!) in Huntly yesterday a procession of rally cars followed the entourage to Huntly cemetery. It was a rather poignant and colourful tribute to a lost friend, one who had lived life to the full, and if truth be told just a wee bit of a party animal at times.

After the short open-air service and the black cars had departed there was some hesitation before the rally cars followed. That was because there was a heated debate underway in the lead car, the Hyundai i20 R5 resplendent in its full and exact 2024 Snowman Rally winning livery.

I don’t know who suggested it first but Ken Wood was saying surely we can’t do that in a cemetery and all the while being urged on by Neil Shanks to defy convention. Neil of course was John Wink’s co-driver on his last 40 rallies, and not just a co-driver but a close family friend, so knew him well. And under that ‘Doc Brown’ (from Back to the Future!?) exterior there lurks a streak of devilment in Ken Wood, as one might expect from anyone who wrestled a 300 bhp Rover Vitesse through the nation’s forest rally roads in days gone by.

Whatever, the debate raged on for a few seconds until Ken finally switched on the ‘Launch mode’ button on the Hyundai. According to him it wasn’t a ‘full launch’ just enough to make the heart of the beast pop and bang and reverberate across the grass and through the trees breaking the reverential silence.

They both agreed – he would have loved that. 

You want proof? There are two streaks of rubbery black smudges on an otherwise quiet stretch of tarmac in Huntly cemetery where they shouldn’t be.

For sure, John Wink would indeed have loved that.