An insider view of top-level rallysport

KIWI affinity for rallying means a podcast dedicated to the sport is bound to be popular. All the more when it talks with a New Zealand hero.

WRC Backstories is funded by the championship and hosted by Beck Williams, the Welsh voice on the FIA World Rally Championship commentary team.

The show’s premise is to be a deep dive; entertaining, heartwarming and often candidly frank interviews with the sport’s personalities, mainly drivers, is the theme.

The show really scored with Hayden Paddon. His journey through the ranks of New Zealand rallying to the big league of the World Rally Championship, his time with the Hyundai team and the subsequent resurgence to the world stage via a title-winning European rally championship pitch is fully told, in sometimes raw detail, and it is fascinating.

https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/wrc-backstories-hayden-paddon/

Paddon’s resolve to live his dream is stirring. The challenges of competing in WRC are laid bare; it was a tough gig. The 2017 season-opening crash on Rally Monte Carlo, in which his i20 slid on black ice and struck and killed a Spanish photographer, is related. Paddon giving hint of the lack of empathy from the Hyundai team at a time when he was already dealing with other personal challenges is told calmly, but you can sense the emotion.

Williams has an adept talent for turning the conversation around, and it was heartwarming to hear rally drivers have the same heroes as we do – names like Colin McRae and Possum Bourne are legends that come to mind, that both Paddon and Williams also agree on.

The WRC Backstories pod is very polished, with crisp audio quality and little advertising to interrupt.

Well worth the subscription.

The WRC Podcast: Backstories Podcast Homepage: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/wrc-podcasts/