One of the truisms you’ll hear about photography is that “being there” is half the process. And with motorsports photography, “being there” means more than simply being at the track; it means being at just the right spot at just the right moment. Direct track-side access, and the ability to move from spot to spot, is key when covering any motorsports event.
For the the first-ever X-Games Rally back in 2006, though, our one media pocket was a group of bleacher seats in a corner of the Home Depot Center. But as it turned out, those corner seats were the perfect spot from which to witness motorsports history.
LA’s Home Depot Center hosted the final stage of the X-Games Rally. This was a spectacle crafted for live TV, with a stadium course designed to send drivers through a tight and twisty tarmac section outside of the arena before shooting them down into the bowl for the main event, where they would navigate around, through and over the motorcross course.
At this moment, this event was about to come to its first-ever conclusion. After a week of stage rallies, McRae, as expected of the world champion, entered this final round sitting atop the points ladder, followed by newcomers Ken Block and Travis Pastrana. Keep in mind that this all went down years before the first Gymkhana film, so the crowd was shocked to see the DC drivers lay down some respectable runs. McRae was still the favorite to win, however, as all he had to do to win was keep his car shiny-side up.
McRae gave us a masterclass on rally driving the moment he hit the throttle. His speed, car control and precision unmatched. And his win was in the bag. Until…
The master’s WRX somehow lost its balance mid-air over the stage’s final jump, landing on its front-left wheel and flipping end-over-end, the rasp of its wide-open throttle louder than the crunching of glass and metal. We in the audience were nervous, but we’d soon find out that McRae was in control the entire time as the instant his Subaru was back on all four wheels, it took off like a shot to finish the race. McRae’s final time, my records show, was just 0.52 seconds off that of the event’s winner, Travis Pastrana.
Between watching the magic happen before us in real time, and a few short moments later examining the aftermath, we all learned that the stories of McRae’s driving weren’t just hype—if anything, they undersold the man’s true driving genius.
Witnessing this run would forever be one of the highlights of my career, and these photos remain some of my favorites I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking—even with a clunky old Canon 10D I stupidly kept in JPEG mode. But more than that, I’m grateful that I got the chance to witness one of my driving heroes in action, and that he more than lived up to the hype.
