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One to Watch: Ari-vederci and thank you
Finland · Peugeot · 10/08/2003 14:43:21
Call it a high-speed canvassing campaign if you want, but Ari Vatanen admitted that the fact he was doing this rally was not entirely unrelated to fact that the European Parliament elections are due quite shortly too.
“It’s a nice bit of publicity,” said the Euro MP, but Ari’s participation in the Rally Finland meant more to him than merely a few votes.
If some votes just happen to come his way as a result of this rally though, he’s hardly going to turn them down, is he? Co-driver Juha Repo said that half the recce was spent drinking coffee in farmhouses to drum up some local support, the other half on the stages. No wonder Ari was fined $1000 for exceeding the recce speed limit 12 times. He had a lot of people to see and places to go to.
But so what? Ari brought a bit of old-fashioned glamour to what is now a very lean, mean and modern spectacle. Think of Sofia Loren coming to the Oscars and you get the picture.
He can drive too. To finish 11th after having been out of practice for five years is the sort of achievement which makes you realise what a phenomenal talent he was in his prime. Talk to Colin McRae, and he’ll tell you that Ari was the person who first got him excited about rallying.
Ari beat Armin Schwarz, who must surely be feeling a little silly tonight, and also much-touted hotshot Jari-Matti Latvala in the Ford Focus. Both cars are a bit more modern than Ari’s old customer spec Peugeot, but as he said himself, the young guys are still pretty quick.
Although Ari enjoyed himself, he says he has no plans to make a full-time comeback.
Yet.
Other than the shock absorbers, the final stages were just good fun for Ari with no real dramas. But there was a bit of genuine emotion when he bumped into Dr Jean Duby, the French doctor who treated him after his life-threatening crash on the 1985 Rally of Argentina.
“Without him, I wouldn’t be alive now,” said Ari. “These are the things that really matter in life, not little stories about shock absorbers.”
It’s sometimes easy to forget that.
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Varsin iloista ja äänekästä porukkaa! Silmiin pistävää oli myös rallikansan tuntemukset Rikua kohtaan. Selvästi vähemmän ablodeja sai kuin Petter ja Markko. 
