One of the first flying finns and the man behind making left foot braking as important as it is today, Pentti Airikkala, passed away on 30th September. I have been priviledged to have personally known him from my days at his school and over my many visits to UK, would often go to meet him at maidenhead, where he lived and he was always happy to clear any queries I had. I for one owe him for cracking the RRR test as doing that school with him taught me a lot about driving a fwd car. Something I had no idea of, before that. One of his famous advices to me was to carry a fifteen feet long rope in the car with a knot every about one and half feet during a rally. He so rightly said, "incase you go off and get stuck, which in most probability you will in a rally, then it'll be a hell lot easier for ten men to hold that rope at the knots and pull you out rather than trying to find a place for each one to hold the car, then slip and then hold while all ten pull/push separatey". Naren and Gaurav are others from India who have done his school and he spoke very highly about them. The last project that he was working on was getting a patent on making the run off areas at the end of runways of major airports into a water filled one rather than having the traditional grass or hay stacks or tarmac. It was his idea that this will be a lot safer way to have crash landings than what is present now. I will miss him a lot and our lunch date at the Fat Duck remains a dream. Thank You SIR.
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