July 11, 2024
Leading BTRDA and multiple Welsh Rally Championship winning crew Matthew Hirst and Declan Dear have joined Carbon Positive Motorsport's group of ambassadors to support the Positive About Motorsport initiative.
Ahead of this year’s Nicky Grist Stages, where the former winners will both appear as ambassadors for the first time, Carbon Positive Motorsport spoke with Matthew Hirst about his career to date, ambitions for the future, and the importance he places on competing in an environmentally conscious way.
CPM: Matthew, thank you for joining us as an ambassador and taking the time to speak to us before the Nicky Grist Stages. You have finished runner up on the Nicky Grist Stages in 2023, is 2024 going to be your year to win the event?
MH: We are approaching the business end of the BTRDA & Welsh championships and given the current position of the championships it's key we have good score on this event. It’s not crucial that we actually win the event outright, and given the likes of Chris Ingram and Keith Cronin are entered for this years event, it’s not all that realistic. It will be interesting to compare ourselves to former European and British Champions on an event where there is no option to recce the stages beforehand, levelling the playing field a little.
As ever me and Dec will be putting a good amount of preparation into the event- the technical nature of the stages demand accuracy in the pace notes to attack the stages with precision. Another challenge of the Nicky Grist is both dust and high tyre wear. Typically, the event tends to enjoy warm weather which increases the dust levels which can make spotting braking zones and markers all that much harder. On top of this the weather coupled with the abrasive nature of the roads can lead to extreme tyre wear and often it's a case of managing the tyres, trying to keep the car straight on the exit of corners not putting undue load into the car where possible.
CPM: Declan and yourself have become over the years one of the most competitive pairings in UK rallying, what have been your highlights in your career to date?
MH: That’s quite the compliment, and yes we have had quite a good run, but there’s always room for improvement! I suppose there has been quite a theme of us both being strong on Welsh Gravel for whatever reason which is perhaps shown in our results. Which is great, but it always did bug me that we hadn’t managed to win a BTRDA event outside of Wales. Therefore, I would say winning the Kielder Forest event for the first-time last year was a bit of a relief and a weight of my shoulders.
Photo: Rally Media UK
CPM: You compete both on tarmac and forest events, what surface do you prefer?
MH: Quite a simple answer really. Gravel. We’ve only done a handful of tarmac events, whereas I’ve lost count of how many gravel events we’ve done in the last seven years since we started competing. Really, we should focus more on tarmac but there is only so much you can do with the time away from work and budget it takes to go rallying and we’ve committed to these championships.
CPM: At only 27 you have a long competition career ahead – what are your ambitions for the future?
MH: I suppose at the moment I’ve been so short sighted that I tend to focus on the year ahead with no great consideration for the longer term future. I do however have bucket list events which you always think- yeah one day we will have a crack at that. Donegal stands out probably above everything else. I did the recce for it in 2017, so it was my first year rallying and ever since that I’ve been transfixed on getting a run there.
I also look at the Scottish Championship as a good well-run series and one that seems to generate quite a lot of exposure. Plus, the boys at the front are pushing on a fair pace and I’m sure it would be eye opening to see where we would fit into that mix. It would however take some convincing Dec to travel anywhere past the lake district but I’m sure we could twist his arm into that.
CPM: We all have our heroes in the sport, what drivers in the past have been the most inspiring to you?
MH: It has got to be Colin McRae. I grew up playing the games and watching early 2000’s WRC footage and what a boy he was. Yeah, maybe he wasn’t the fastest but is there really anyone else you’d prefer to sit alongside given the opportunity?
CPM: How do you see the sport develop in the future? and how important to you is that the sport acts on climate change and its environmental perception?
MH: Look, I’m not an expert in this field but I do have some thoughts - of course it's important to me that the sport acts on climate change and its perception. From my view it is without argument that we must adapt and innovate to satisfy stakeholders (landowners, regulators, the public etc) and it’s a case of navigating a path towards it.
I think there is unwarranted negative sentiment surrounding the place Rallying has in the future and one of the biggest obstacles rallying faces is that people are afraid of change.
When I look at a Rallying service area, I see a highly motivated intelligent bunch of people which all want the sport to succeed, and I think it’s a case that we need to bunch together and communicate more clearly the actions we must take to maintain and grow whilst adapting to the environment surrounding us. Now it’s okay to point the blame at governing bodies or whoever - which perhaps is a different conversation - but notwithstanding that we collectively ought to embrace changes, such as Carbon Positive Motorsport. I believe that self-regulation often leads to more desirable outcomes and will help, in part, to secure the longevity of the sport as we know it.
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