Colin McRae Vision joins forces with Octobers Rally of Scotland‏

* Charity in memory of Scottish rallying legend to raise funds andawareness * Jimmy McRae to drive Colin's Subaru Legacy on event

This October's RACMSA Rally of Scotland has officially joined forces withColin McRae Vision - the charity set up in memory of the legendary Scottishrallying hero to support underprivileged children.Furthermore, Colin's father Jimmy, himself a five times British RallyChampion, will drive the 'Zero' course car on the event (7-9 October) - thiswill be one of Colin's first and best remembered competition cars, theSubaru Legacy in which he won the 1991 and 1992 British Rally Championshiptitles (pictured - see caption below for a hi-res version).

Colin McRae Vision was launched in 2008 to promote educational and healthprogrammes for children. Founded in memory of the world's most famous rallydriver - and also the 1995 World Rally Champion - it has made donations ofmore than £50,000 in the UK and overseas in the last 12 months alone. DuringOctober's Rally of Scotland it will make further donations to worthy causesnominated by Perthshire and Stirlingshire councils - it is through bothcounties that the rally will predominantly run. In addition, the Vision'sown retail unit will be present during the event to generate funds from thepublic.Lanark-based Jimmy McRae commented: "It's quite appropriate that I'll bedriving the Legacy as it's 20 years since Colin won his first British titleand 30 years since I won my first British title."I'm really looking forward to this event. The Legacy was a big car to throwaround the forests but the memories that people will have of it with Colinat the wheel, sideways, the famous colour scheme and that very distinctiveengine note should hopefully put a smile on quite a few faces."Rally of Scotland's simply a great event for the country with many of thetop international stars putting on a show on what the drivers and publicregard as the best competitive stages about. I have a lot of knowledge ofthe stages around Perth from my own rallying days and the McRae Stages eventbut I haven't been down in the Carron Valley here in Lanarkshire for 20 ormore years. Colin's brother Alister (also a past British Rally Champion) isalmost certainly going to be taking part in the event so hopefully this willhelp add more interest around what we are trying to achieve."McRae Snr added: "I'm sure Colin probably didn't realise just how popular hewas but through his popularity we've been able to do quite a bit recently.When we set up the Vision charity we could see there was an opportunity toput money back into kids and help with their health and education - thingsthat Colin was always behind."Andrew Coe, Chief Executive of International Motor Sports (IMS) thatorganises the Rally of Scotland, said: "We are absolutely delighted to besupporting Colin McRae Vision for 2011 - it is a wonderfully moving andnoble charity and we sincerely hope our event can help raise furtherawareness and support for the tremendous work it carries out. We are alsodeeply honoured that Jimmy McRae will in effect be leading the field througheach stage in that famous Subaru Legacy of Colin's from the early Nineties.It is sure to be a hugely emotional moment for many of the thousands of fansout on the stages during the weekend."The Rally of Scotland (7-9 Oct) is the UK's only round of the high-profileIntercontinental Rally Challenge. The 2011 event is set to attract astar-studded entry of world-class rally teams, cars and drivers. Britishhopes are expected to lie with Scottish aces, Lanark's Alister McRae(British Rally Champion in 1995) in his Proton and newly crowned 2011Scottish Rally Champion David Bogie (Dumfries), as well as Darlington's GuyWilks - winner in 2009 - in his factory Peugeot UK 207. There will alsolikely be huge support for the Skoda UK-entered Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsenin his Fabia.Making the running at present, however, are the likes of Skoda's Finnishmegastar Juho Hanninen (last year's Rally of Scotland winner and reigningIRC Champion), Belgians Freddy Loix and Thierry Neuville, France's BryanBouffier and the Czech Republic's Jan Kopecky. In addition to Proton, Skodaand Peugeot, other famous rallying makes such as Ford, Mitsubishi, Subaruand Citroen will be represented on the entry list.This year's Rally of Scotland will get under way on the Friday afternoon (7Oct) with a Ceremonial Start at Stirling Castle before the event's openingtwo competitive timed stages held in the dark of night around CarronReservoir in North Lanarkshire. The event will then move into Perthshire onthe Saturday (8 Oct), taking in classic stages such as Craigvinean, DrummondHill and Errochty before a return on the Sunday (9 Oct) to Lanarkshire foranother run through Carron Valley before moving into Stirlingshire for twonew tests, Loch Chon and the giant 26km High Corrie that will each betackled twice. The Rally will then finish late afternoon on the Sunday withits two short final stages through the majestic grounds of Scone Palace nearPerth - also the scene for this year's Ceremonial Finish.Public admission costs £20 per vehicle at the entry to each stage with theexception of Sunday morning's Carron Valley stage which costs £10.


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