Hi!!! Here I am Tuesday (actually Wednesday at 2:30am) after Rally Japan. I am still somewhat of a zombie. I left Obhiro on Monday night and drove to Ryohei's house about 1.5 hours from the city. Cooked dinner with his mom and ate and basically passed out sometime before 10pm and woke up at 1:30 this afternoon. I am now in Sapporo, I am staying at a very nice business hotel on the top floor.. it is actually a double room but I got it for the single price. Not too bad a price either, including paid parking (typical of many Japanese hotels) the cost is about 8,500 yen for the night and I get some free Onigiri (rice balls) for breakfast in the morning too.

I have days and days of news, I know all you want to hear becuase everyone has emailed my cellular phone for the past week... I am exhausted, working is harder than spectating, that is for sure and there is much more stress. I did enjoy my time though, I would not want to go back and change anything.

Did I mention in the guestbook that Denis Giraudet is one of the most handsome men I have ever seen. He is sexy beyond belief. He has a sophisticated sexiness about him, what I kept referring to as 007 handsome. I really was overcome with his manner, his voice and his looks when I picked him up. No different than picking up a movie star like Sean Connery for me.

I also found out that Jari-Matti Latvala is 100 times more handsome than his pictures show. I fell in love with his English on Rally Radio and I saw some photos of him, I thought he was cute. But when I met him I almost died!!!!! I have to honestly say that he is almost on the mark for me as far as equal to Petter in his looks. I mean of course you all know I am totally in love with Petter but Jari-Matti is just as good looking so I may have to split my heart a bit and make them equal. Not only is J-M handsome he has a boyish cute to him, of course that is because he is only 21 years old. It is sad to think how young he is. He is the youngest of the PWRC drivers this year. Aki is 2nd youngest. J-M's voice in person is just as cute as on the radio. He is also kind, sweet and caring. He took a lot of time to talk to me and that meant a lot to me. Even the last night in Obihiro after rally he was so depressed about crashing out the next to the last stage of rally (like Petter last year) of course and he came to talk to me at the farewell party about his feelings and what had actually happened since I had not heard the entire story yet. His mechanics gave me his spoiler, they even washed it and I had it with me and he came to my car to sign it. What a sad memory of his roll but still since it did happen, at least I have a piece of his car. I actually have two other smaller pieces too.... :-)

Another great thing about J-M is that one of his mechanics "Asko" is also very sweet. Asko is J-M's chief mechanic in the Finland championship but this time Asko was working alongside different mechanics for the team. Anyway my own team did not talk to me that much so I spent a lot of time with Asko learning about the car. He explained many things to me and taught me about some things I wanted to learn about. I enjoyed talking to him and appreciated his time. J-M's team mate rolled and retired and could not go on. So some of the mechanics could go back earlier if they wanted. Asko will be busy from next weekend so he wanted to get back to work and also to see his family. He decided to leave Sunday afternoon. When he came to say goodbye to me I cried. He asked me why I was crying... but I had really found such a good friend in him that I was sad he was leaving. I know it was silly but I could not help it. Later Sunday evening after I knew Asko was long gone I got a phone call on my cell phone and answered it. He said "This is Asko" and I panicked, figuring he would only be calling me if something was wrong. Instead he was at Narita Airport waiting for his flight and was shopping for souvenirs for his wife and wanted to know what the difference between two things was and get some advice from me. That was also sweet that he wanted my help to get the perfect gift for his wife. He really is a wonderful guy, I told Jari-Matti that later at the party and he thanked me for complimenting Asko since they are really good friends. I told J-M that I cried when Asko left, he seemed somewhat shocked but not so considering that he had already figured out I have a huge and emotional heart.

When Takuma first retired on Saturday I was with Becs while she was doing Rally Radio and I started crying. She said I could not do that, I could not get too emotional. When J-M rolled I was sitting in the PWRC lounge area and talking to one of the other team bosses. Just then someone said he rolled, I jumped out of my chair so fast that I knocked it over trying to get to the computer screens showing split times and the GPS tracking systems. I was watching the screen to see if his car would move and I started crying. The Team Tango boss told me that it was ok, that they weren't hurt if there had been no emergency call yet. But I was so upset I was crying again. I was worried about him and Miikka but also I felt so sad that he was in the lead and lost everything. Just like Petter last year on the same stage, he went from leading the rally over one minute to retiring in a second's time. In J-M's situation faulty parts caused his retirement. Not driving error or anything. What a shame for sure. He said "I was over one minute ahead so I was driving very cautiously without pushing, no need." Well that stage claimed Petter last year and J-M this year so I am all for thrwoing that one out of Rally Japan in the future. It is bad luck for Subaru men!

I need to go, will write more after getting home and getting full internet.

Lots of love,
Viki