Colin McRae season, it was McRae who had to look elsewhere for 2004. David Richards, McRae's former boss at Subaru, who had by now taken over WRC's commercial rights holders ISC and worried that the loss of a character like McRae would damage his ability to market the sport, set about trying to help McRae find a drive for 2004. McRae was unable to find a team, and for the first time in over ten years he would not be competing in the World Rally Championship. As the only other potential alternative suitors, Subaru instead eventually chose Mikko Hirvonen to partner Petter
Colin McRae Rally (video game) an early prototype build of the game, prompting the team to move into full development. Besides providing technical input on the game's handling, Colin McRae and his co-driver Nicky Grist voiced themselves in the game, with McRae himself serving as the Rally School instructor for the game's tutorial mode. The game also included an easter egg in the form of an alien abduction scene where the player's car is beamed upwards into a ship on certain special stages upon activating a cheat code, parodying the alleged abduction of Barney and Betty Hill by extraterrestrials in 1961. By late 2002, sales