Well, you have seen the pictures of the car. Since then not much new has happened, except that all the required parts are slowly starting to appear at my doorstep...
Risto Buri and LMS Racing was obviously a huge help, giving me the space in Vehmaa to dismantle the car. The body is now at Olli Kaurala, and he has done his first inspection and placed the car in a jig. Seems all the fastening points are intact, and he also has the right CrMo tube available. Whether or not he will have time to do the welding prior to the race will be confirmed later today... However, should that not work out (and Olli does have a very busy schedule even without my troubles...) as a back-up I managed to shore up Pertti Kiiveri, a well known formula driver, designer and constructor here in Espoo. So I think this will work out.
As for the parts, Simon Daynes of Formula Spares was most helpful and collected the bits and pieces very quickly. Luckily Antti Buri was coming home from the UK, and could bring that stuff along - thus all that reached me Tue this week. The bigger items, engine cover and exhaust, was also found thanks to Lindsay Allen of Fluid Motorsport and Van Diemen. Tracking the TNT shipment, I expect to see that (big!) package to arrive at my doorstep later this afternoon. Markku Mäkelä and Putte Honkanen have been helping me with the wheels, and Putte had some other small parts as well (plus a great deal of good hints and advice, as usual).
Some of you might be wondering of the costs... Well, a bit scary to calculate that, but I would estimate it to be in the ballpark of 2000€+ (not accounting for parts I had in stock - take that in, and you probably look at about 3000€). OK, there truly was a lot of damage, and on the other hand the car is now much better. Also, while acquiring these parts I also bought some extra as "future spares" so that should be included into the equation.
We are not done yet, but things are clearing out, and I expect to have the car running again for the Botniaring race. Of course, very annoying that all this happened but at the same time it has allowed me to go through the car in detail, learn a lot, and to fix some things that needed fixing anyways. So all in all a very useful experience, and certainly "business as usual" in a normal motor racing season!
Big thanks to all the people, both those listed above and the many others I did not mention, for their help! Shows again what a great motor racing community we have going here in Finland, and what great help we can get from our colleagues in places like the UK!
