Colin Clark and David Evans remember the driver, and man, taken from us at just 34 years old in 2005
Photography by Girardo & Co. Archive
It’s always been a terrible irony that Richard Burns should claim the World Rally Championship title on November 25, 2001, and would succumb to illness exactly four years later.
‘Burnsie’ was a visionary, a difference-marker and a genius behind the wheel, but above all Richard Burns was, unequivocally, a fighter.
On the stages he was a fierce competitor – a winner of 10 world rallies and faster on more stages than anybody across 1999 and 2000. Off the stages, he spent two years battling an illness that beat some people in weeks.
But what truly set Burns apart from the rest? Were the McRae comparisons a help or a hindrance? What was he like to work with? And what was his legacy?
Twenty years on from his passing, Colin Clark talks to David Evans in a tribute episode of SPIN, The Rally Pod – remembering the man, and the driver, that was taken from us at just 34 years old.
Tags: Richard Burns, SPIN The Rally Pod, WRC
Publish Date November 25, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/11/mMPBwyYZ-Girardo_Co._Archive_56452-780x522.jpg November 25, 2025
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