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Special 'gladiator' photo opportunity at WRC Rally Jordan

Controlling your horsepower on sand and gravel is nothing new...as the stars of the World Rally Championship found out before the start in Jordan.

Just over half a century ago – back in late 1959, to be precise – the greatest race in history hit cinema screens all over the world. It was a breathtaking tale of drivers who didn’t know the meaning of compromise, race tactics that were so underhand as to be unbelievable, and non-stop action that has held generations of crowds mesmerised ever since.

It was gladiatorial bravery on a scale that has never been seen again. And the most remarkable thing was that it involved no more than around 10 horsepower.

This epic clash of the titans was the chariot race in the epic film Ben-Hur. Fifty, or just over 2500, years later (depending on your perspective) the legendary race was recreated in its spiritual home. This time, rather than Charlton Heston and Jack Hawkins, the stars were Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen: the frontrunners in the World Rally Championship.

The location was the ancient Roman city of Jerash, just north of the country’s capital Amman. A perfectly preserved hippodrome, which is what the Romans romantically called a horse racing circuit, is a highlight of the ancient city: set in a stunning Biblical landscape. To this day, chariot racing still takes place there, with spectators sitting on the same worn stone steps as their ancestors.

The streets look largely the same as they did when the Roman Emperors strolled around them and the crowds thrilled to the spectacle of wheel to wheel horse-drawn racing. A race normally consisted of 12 laps around a 210 metre long course, making a race distance of about two and a half kilometres. By contrast, the crews on a modern rally face around 350 competitive kilometres – driving machines that put out more than 300, rather than just two, horsepower.

The unflinching bravery, the will to win, and the thrill of competition is exactly the same though as those fearless chariot drivers experienced at the dawn of the first millennium. At the time, there were very few owner-racers: instead chariot drivers tended to be slaves or wayward members of the owners’ family. The classical poet Pindar went so far as to praise the bravery of one Herodotos of Thebes for actually ‘driving his own chariot’.

Chariot racing was probably the first form of sport with wheels that thrived on commercial sponsorship. The chariots attracted wealthy groups of financial backers, all of whom would compete for the services of the best drivers. The crowds often got caught up in the fervour, with gangs of supporters starting violent trackside brawls with their rivals. 

While the World Rally Championship is growing more popular by the day, reaching more than 61 million people across the planet, it hasn’t quite yet got to the point where Hirvonen and Loeb fans are exchanging blows on the stages. Nonetheless, it takes a lot of excitement for Kimi Raikkonen – the 2007 Formula 1 World Champion and self-styled ‘iceman’ – to dress up as a gladiator. He still kept his sunglasses on throughout – but the story goes that Charlton Heston forgot to take off his watch during the filming of Ben Hur, so history repeated itself once more.

The landmark scene of the film, the chariot race, is still one of the most mesmerising sequences in cinematic history. Just like rallying, the straights on a hippodrome were reasonably straightforward but the corners caught out the racers, with the risk of chariots overturning and a grisly encounter with the hooves of several angry horses.

Petter Solberg, who won the World Rally Championship in 2003, was keen to try his hand at driving a chariot, getting a taste of what it must have been like for his sporting forefathers more than two thousand years ago.

In a world that has changed beyond recognition since the Emperor Hadrian ruled, it’s reassuring to know that some things are largely unaltered. The Triumphal Arch, where the Jordan Rally started, looks much the same as it did when the local currency was the Denarius rather than the Dinar. Gladiator sandals have never gone out of fashion, while even togas remain popular amongst debauched students.

The technique of driving quickly on gravel and sand hasn’t changed much either. Modern rally drivers have to get their heads around concepts such as anti-lag and diff settings rather than simply filling up their beasts with water and hay. But the sensitivity needed to find the limit of grip and the commitment necessary to triumph against a pack of equally determined adversaries is exactly the same.

As Loeb, Hirvonen, Raikkonen and Solberg will all tell you, world rallying is the new chariot racing. With just a few more horses.

About WRC:
In 2009, the WRC saw a 12% increase in TV viewers per rally, with the final round at Rally GB attracting 61 million viewers worldwide. The 2010 WRC calendar features 13 rallies staged in Sweden, Mexico, Japan, Jordan, Turkey, New Zealand, Portugal, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, France, Spain and Great Britain. For more information please visit www.wrc.com.