RICHARD BURNSBest known for leading the Subaru and Mitsubishi Rally Team’s to victory and smashing records all over the globe, Richard Burns was an English rally driver who died on 25 November, 2005. He was just 34 years old.He topped World Champion Rally score sheets in 2001 and, during a career on the track which spanned a mere 13 years, competed in an incredible 104 world rallies.As part of the Subaru Rally Team, he became the British Rally Championship’s youngest ever champion of 1993.Richard Burns was born on 17 January, 1971, in Reading, England. He started driving in a field near his house at the tender age of eight and, at eleven, joined the ‘Under 17 Car Club’, where he became driver of the year in 1984.After driving a Ford Escort on a trip to Jan Churchill’s Welsh Forest Rally School, Burns later went on to join the local Craven Motor Club. Here, his talent was spotted by rally raconteur and enthusiast David Williams and he rallied stages such as Cambrian Rally, Bagshot and Severn Valley.In 1990, as part of the Peugeot Challenge, he got his first taste of a World Rally Championship event with the RAC Rally in Britain.He met co-driver Robert Reid a year later and with him, in 1993, proceeded to join the Subaru Rally Team for the British Rally Championship where he won four rallies on the Vauxhall Sport, Pirelli, Scottish and Manx International stages.With his career rapidly flourishing, 1996 saw an international opening with Mitsubishi. He seized it and later guided the team to victory in that year’s Rally New Zealand, fending off Subaru heavyweights such as Kenneth Eriksson and Piero Liatti.He won his maiden World Rally Championship event in 1998, piloting a Mitsubishi Carisma GT on the treacherous stages of the Safari Rally.By the dawn of the 21st century, Mr Burns had clinched a sensational win at the Rally of Great Britain, inspired a special edition of the Subaru Impreza and become the first Englishman to ever win a World Rally Championship.However , any hopes for further successes on the track soon faded as, during the 2003 Wales Rally GB, he suffered a blackout and was subsequently diagnosed with a brain tumour. Despite chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions, Mr Burns slipped into a coma and died at the age of 34 on 25 November, 2005.
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