Finnish driver ‘spared’

Press, 11 July 1979, Page 34

Finnish driver ‘spared’

By

JOHN FRIDD

There were sighs of relief in Auckland yesterday as watersiders shifted around containers in the ship Resolution Bay and opened one of the lower containers. Inside were all the spares for the DTV Chevette that the Finn, Pentti Airikkala, will drive in the Motogard Rally, which starts on Sunday. The General Motors Dealer Team had given up hope of having the container offloaded at Auckland, as upper containers supposed to be put off at Wellington had stayed aboard because of a ban in the capital. The team could see its

carefully planned, very expensive effort to win the rally crumbie as Airikkala tried to cope with second-rate worn tyres and necessary repairs could not be done. Among the items unloaded from the container yesterday were the vital tyres that hold the key in any rally. There were 120 of them in all, in various widths and patterns to suit the multitude of road surfaces they will be asked to cope with during the rally’s three days and nights. When Airikkala heard that his vital spares may stay aboard the ship he jokingly said: “Give me any .tyres, as long as they are black and round,” but he was obviously relieved yesterday. The Finn

drives his 240 b.h.p. Chevette very aggressively and often wears out a set of softcompound rally tyres in 20 kilometres, so he will need all his spare tyres on the Motogard. Airikkala’s countryman, Ari Vatanen, arived in Auckland on Monday, much to the relief of his Rothmans Escort team and rally organisers. Vatanen, due to arrive last Friday, appeared to have vanished off the face of the earth with his wife of three weeks, Rita, but jetted in blithely from Sri Lanka on Monday looking fit after a fourmonth lay-off through injury. “I am more interested in this rally than my back now,” he said.