Viki’s report, day 2

Tuesday October 23, 2007 part 1

This time I have to do this in two parts. First of all it was too exciting to fit into one report today and second I can’t stay awake long enough!

Tuesday morning 5:20am:

I woke up late! Not surprising though since I did not get to sleep until after 3:30 am. I was making Halloween treat bags for some of the drivers and co-drivers until that time..

I apologized to all my friends over and over but my lateness turned out to be a godsend!!!

We went to Hiromo’s hotel to pick her up and who was getting into his recce car but Manfred Stohl! So I shouted… “wait Manfred I have a present for you and Ilka!” I brought them a bag of all sorts of American chocolates and Ilka looked so happy. She loves her chocolates!!! Had a short chat and a hug and they had to get on their way! I was also able to tell Ilka that I love her hair short! Everyone commented on that yesterday at the horse racing event!

We took off following Manfred but got stuck behind some traffic lights and we on our own. When we got to the highway I was still mentioning how my lateness gave us the opportunity to talk to Manfred when all of a sudden we were being overtaken by a few different rally cars. The first one passed #60 something. In Japanese we said “Who is #6X?” Then another car and another car, etc… Each time we would say “Who is XX? “ Then all of a sudden whoosh a car was passing us at high speed. (I mention the next part with great embarrassment and I know you will all be laughing at us but we are laughing at ourselves and have been all day!) I looked up and saw #7 and at the same moment we all said “Who is #7?” We were surely too tired!!! Then it was like “Oh my God, that is Petter!” Then Chris whooshed by and then he had to slide in between our friend Hideaki and my car because the oncoming traffic started to get a bit heavy. Xevi also slid in between us! We had a little Subaru Sandwich!! We were having a great time and both of our cars did the best we could to keep up!! When the chance to pass came up again they all sped away from us and we went faster and faster over 135kms~ but unfortunately we lost them for awhile!

We went to the first recce stage: Rikubetsu and the first thing we noticed were the Ford recce service cars pulled off into a small parking area. We pulled into an adjacent parking area across the small street. Then we saw Henning come out of the stage and pull into the parking. We were getting out of the car and when I saw his orange sweatshirt we went crazy and I was screaming “Henning, Henning, Henning” and Shige and Tamu and Hiromo.. and Hideaki too!

I was running with my Norwegian flag across the street screaming his name and ran right into his arms for a big hug! He said “You’re Viki?!” “Yes, I am!! I’ve been waiting to meet you forever!! I can’t believe you are here! I love you!!” As soon as I managed to say everything I was so embarrassed!

Henning signed my Norwegian flag and all my friend’s stuff too. Then we took some pictures together. Henning is so cool! Of course all Solberg men are cool and very handsome!!

He was so nice and talked with us a long time. I was so nervous that I thought my heart would beat right out of my chest and bounce around the ground!

After watching Loeb and Sordo pass we moved on to the next area!

While we were driving we realized that it was only 8:45 in the morning and we had already had more fun than should be allowed in one day!

Then we ended up on a road section again and suddenly Xevi was coming up behind us. “Beep beep..” and we chased him at over 140km/hr! There was no sign of Petter or Chris, Xevi was running behind due to the fact that he has to make all new pacenotes since it is his first time in Japan.

Again we looked at the clock.. Wow, it was still before 11am and so much fun had happened we could have gone to sleep at that moment and been satisfied with our day!

I had let Shige drive this morning because I thought I would sleep in the car the 2 hours drive but after seeing Petter who in their right mind can sleep?! Even in the wrong mind, who could sleep?

We were going on to the next stage and realizing that it was just before noon noon but we had already had a full day of fun. We thought it was more like noon than midnight!

We have seen everyone at least three times. We had already driven over 200kms at speeds that were scary but my Legacy was keeping up like a champ!
She’s a good car even w/out a turbo!

More exciting news to come about the 2nd half of the day tomorrow!! If It is believable the day actually gets better and better and better until it is BEST!!!!

Sorry to keep you hanging but it is already after 1230am and we have to leave for recce agan at 6am.

Adding some pictures as well!!!!

Enjoy!!!

Live but still quite near dead in Obihiro,
Subaru Girl Viki