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Colin McRae's first World Rally title 1995

Not many Scottish sports stars find themselves as the eponymous star of a million-selling video game, but a Lanarkshire-born driver did just that, in the late Nineties.

Lanark native Colin McRae was born in 1968 and from an early age was destined to be a race driver. His father Jimmy was an established rally star by the time Colin had reached his teens, winning 5 British Rally Championships between 1981 and 1988, under the Opel and Ford marques.

This family grounding in the sport led Colin to gain experience before he even had a driving license; his youth was spent on motorbikes, and a first championship victory was gained in 1981 at the Scottish Schoolboy Motocross trials.

Three years later he won a bike slalom championship and two years later, when legally able to drive, he bit the bullet and followed his father's footsteps into the British Junior Rally team. A first venture with the team, driving a Vauxhall Nova in a Swedish World Rally Championship event, saw him finish 36th overall, but 3rd in his age group.

McRae's progress continued in Sweden as he approached 20, this time in a Sierra XR4x4, raising his game high enough to take 15th place in 1989. A fifth-placed finish at the wheel of the new Sierra Cosworth in New Zealand that same year, followed by a super runners-up spot in the British Championship, led top outfit Subaru ProDrive to offer the Scot a place in their British Championship team for 1991.

Their faith was well placed. After being pipped by David Llewellyn, top man for the previous two years, McRae won four rallies to claim his first major title in some style - but he didn't stop there. His second year with Subaru saw him whitewash his rivals in 1992's championship, completing a clean sweep of every race, leading from start to finish.

McRae's talent had been firmly established and only one further route lay open for him, the World Rally Championship. Britain had been starved of success in the global standings since 1976 and Roger Clark's Lombard RAC win, but McRae changed all that with a win in New Zealand during 1993, followed by neighbouring Australia a matter of months later. A superb 93-94 season climaxed with first place in his home event, and the British crowds went wild for McRae's RAC win.

But the crowds didn't just take to McRae over his nationality. His swashbuckling style, reminiscent of James Hunt's Formula One, had become something of an 'all or nothing' mentality - he pushed his cars to the absolute limit, wowing the crowds but taxing his mechanics.

However, this style and general car troubles looked like they had cost McRae his chance at the 1995 championship before he really got going. The first two rallies, Monte Carlo and Sweden, saw his Subaru Impreza 555 retire before the points were handed out, leaving something of a mountain to climb in terms of the title.

Third and fifth places in Portugal, along with longtime co-driver Derek Ringer, got McRae back on the radar, but an emphatic 34-second win over Didier Auriol in McRae's favourite race, New Zealand - his third straight triumph in that event - cemented his comeback that season.

There really was little stopping McRae now. Second place in the next race, Australia, was sufficient to keep up the momentum, given his title rival Carlos Sainz had retired at the 12th of 30 stages. Sainz kept up the pressure in his home event though, with a relatively comfortable 50-second victory in Catalunya.

And so the final 1995 race, fittingly, was McRae's own home event - the newly named Network Q RAC Rally, beginning on November 22nd that year. The two Subaru team-mates would go head-to-head for the world title, both sitting on 70 championship points going into that last event.

A tight battle ensued, but McRae's knowledge of his home turf ultimately proved vital. Subaru cars took the first three places, and although Sainz was a full five minutes ahead of his team-mate Richard Burns in third place, McRae crucially found 36 seconds to spare over Sainz - enough to give him the full 20 points and a 5-point win in the World Championship.

1996 saw McRae honoured with the MBE by the Queen, and just as the rallying world had expected the newly-crowned young champion to dominate the sport for some time, McRae's reputation for playing fast and loose with his cars proved his undoing. Inconsistent and perhaps brave driving dropped him down the placings where first or second placed finished were within his grasp. 1997 came and went in a similar vein, although McRae's win in the final RAC rally would have taken the title if next champion Tommi Makinen hadn't got points on the board.

McRae's career since his title win has trodden that familiar path - huge promise remaining unfulfilled thanks to his own all-or-nothing style. Two changes of manufacturer failed to recapture the successes of his Subaru years, to the point that McRae took a complete break from the sport in 2004 to compete in the Paris-Dakar Rally, driving a truck with some success. His ability to win races in several forms of wheeled transport provoked memories of another great Scottish driver, perhaps the greatest of all - Jim Clark.

However McRae's real legacy will possibly out-live his racing achievements. His reckless driving style captured the imagination of computer game authors, who created the first "Colin McRae Rally" game in 1998. Several upgraded versions have appeared on various gaming platforms, leaving McRae one of the most popular and best-known motor sportsmen around today.

Written by: Dave Low