Arai Takes Subaru Honours

Mud, rain, fog, loads of bobble hats, umbrellas, fluorescent cars and plenty of world rally machines means that it must have been time for the 2009 Rally GB. Despite Subaru’s withdrawal from world rallying at the end of 2008, there were plenty of privateers testing their skills to the maximum on some of the best rally stages in the world series last year.
On Rally GB, there were no less than 13 Imprezas, some full-blown world rally cars, while others were in the GpN class. It was the safe hands of Toshai Arai that would bring his GpN Impreza home as first past the post in Cardiff. A likeable chap among the Subaru fraternity, Arai finished Rally GB in 14^th place overall and 3^rd in the Production category.
Arai has a great knowledge of the WRC, as he drove for the factory team in the GpN championship from 1997 to 2000 and again in 2002 to 2003. Arai also competed in the Group A championship in 2000 to 2001.
Mads Ostberg had hoped to be within a chance of picking up some points on Rally GB but the Norwegian could not find a set-up with which he was happy during the entire rally. To make things worse he retired with two stages to go having incurred mechanical woes. There were mixed results for British crews in their Imprezas, Wug Utting finished 31^st overall, while Dave Weston retired due to mechanical issues and David Senior withdrew from proceedings.

Mitsubishi Drivers Two Steps

Mud, rain, fog, loads of bobble hats, umbrellas, fluorescent cars and plenty of GpN Lancer Evolution rally cars…it must have been the 2009 Rally GB. The Lancer Evolution has been one of the predominant GpN performers ever built and it showed its class in the hands of Armindo Araujo as he took second place in the Production class in last year‘s UK thriller. Although ineligible for championship points on the GB round, this was of little concern to Araujo, as he had already won the Production Championship on the previous round, Rally Australia. Araujo drove a Lancer Evolution IX to his success in 2009.

The final step on the GpN podium went to Czech driver Martin Prokop in another Lancer Evolution IX. There were mixed results for British and Irish crews in their Evolutions, the Irish pairing of Eamonn Boland and MJ Morrissey finished 34^th overall. Co-drivers George Gwynn, read the notes for South African driver Jon Williams and Andrew Swankey was on board with Icelandic driver Daniel Siguroarson and they finished in 29^th and 41^st respectively.

PENTTI AIRIKKALA
1945 - 2009 R.I.P. by Iain Robertson

Just some quick thoughts about a dear friend, who has departed the motoring scene. Pentti was one of the early crop of Scandinavian rally artistes, who made the trek across to the UK for our uniquely appealing stages. The main difference between him and other personalities like Ari Vatenen, Stig Blomqvist, Per Eklund and Hannu Mikkola was that he remained. In fact, Pentti settled in Bray, Berkshire, the haunt of many racing drivers over the years and home to London’s sometime millionaire stockbrokers, where his family grew into a British way of life. He was fairly late in coming to prominence in rallying, contesting his first WRC event, the Finnish 1000 Lakes Rally, in 1973, at the age of 28 years. Like so many of the events in his career, he retired from that one too. Yet, his sometimes abrasive style, which could be reflected in a sarcastic attitude shown towards almost anyone, who ever got close to him, did produce many positive results. He became known for his uniquely ‘Finnglish’ style of speaking and an ebullient personality that was every bit as large as he was. Having raced against him and participated in his infamous Left-Foot-Braking school, I can tell you that he was never less than competitive. In fact, if there was one aspect to his character that marked him above all of his contemporaries, it lay in his sense of fun and tremendous humour. He told me once about a production car 24-hours race that he had contested, as a young man, at a circuit in Finland. He was driving a Volvo and was so far ahead of his nearest rivals by nightfall that he started to cruise around the circuit, showboating on the bends, as a way to entertain himself as much as anybody else. In fact, he was so bored that he simply pulled out a packet of cigarettes he had secreted within his racing suit and lit one up while lapping. Unfortunately, a Judge of Fact at the event spotted him, relaxed at the wheel, enjoying a ‘gasper’, and reported him to the Race Stewards. Although he won the race by a country-mile, he was admonished for smoking in a racing car and had the honour removed!
Although his first-ever rally car was a Mercedes-Benz, Pentti came to public awareness at the wheel of various Opel and then Vauxhall models. He was rushed into British consciousness following an appearance on ITV’s ‘World Of Sport’ programme, when he drove presenter Dickie Davis around a Finnish forestry stage at breakneck speed. By the time he had relocated to the UK, he was a Vauxhall regular at the wheel of various HS and HSR Chevettes. However, he was also one of the chosen trio in Rothmans 1981 assault on the World Rally Championship, in the swansong year for the Ford Escort.  His first professional drive for Mitsubishi was in the 1000 Lakes and RAC Rallies of 1982, at the controls of a Lancer Turbo. Yet, as a measure of his flexibility, he also drove a Lancia 037 and Nissan 240RS before returning to Vauxhall and contesting several British Championships in the late-1980s, prior to returning to Mitsubishi and his most famous win of them all, at the wheel of a Galant VR4 in the 1989 RAC Rally. Although he enjoyed a year with the Ford Sierra Cosworth in 1990, his final professional outing was in the Wales Rally GB, in 2003 driving a Lancer Evo VI. His rally school provided first-class training to many top drivers, including Messrs McRae and Burns, and innumerable private drivers and fans indulged their fantasies at the controls of his fairly tired old Fords at the airfield base. He enjoyed being a fan of the people. Pentti enjoyed a drink, which may have ultimately caused his demise, as he died of liver failure, following a fall at his family home in late September 2009. He will be missed by all who really got to know him and he leaves a widow and a large family of children and grandchildren, all of whom loved him dearly.