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 One
of the organizers opened the Poronkusema-dance repairing
the door lock of his Dyane. As
it was somewhat
cold and dark outside, he dismanteled the door and took it inside the
hallway of the first hostel for a quick repair.
 During
the
next days, the situation eased somewhat.
The
winter Raider's
Poronkusemas confined mainly to travel in the (snow covered covered) ditch (-->
"ditching") just to be pulled out again by the following
raiders. Fortunately,
noone was hurt and the damages to the cars were
limited to a few minor scratches.
This reflects in particular the vast experience of the participants with the
wintery road conditions.
 The
participants tried to
produce as inventive Poronkusemas as possible. For me, the following
ditching was a special highlight of particular humourus quality: One Raider
(unintentionally) mixed
up a snowmobile track with the exit from a petrol station. Unfortunately, 50
cm of powdered snow do not carry a Dyane. The chassis was carefully belly
landed on the snow in full length. Fortunately,
one 4WD
duck happened to
be on the scene that
very moment and pulled the disabled vessel from the deep snow.
 We
do not want to leave unmentioned the
most
creative
Poronkusema. The organizer (i.e. his co-driver) competently collected the
first price. He succeeded in breaking the suspension, two rims and one brake
line of the 2CV on a closed road on the frozen Baltic Sea by driving across
a chunk of ice. "Kallefarao"
was stranded on the bare ice with no suspension nor brakes.
No reason to panic:
Of
course, the following Raider had
the spare parts needed in his trunk. Within less than 1 1/2 hours,
2CV was on the road - sorry: the ice - again.
The less adventurous Raiders enjoyed the scene from the icebreaker which
connects the island of Hailuoto to the mainland. The ferry crosses the ice
some 50 meters away from the inofficial ice road.
 One
English team chose the 4WD duck because of the better driving on slippery
roads. STill, they were forced into the ditch by an oncoming bus. The road
slope was so steep that despite
his 4WD he did not manage to get back to the road by himself.
Remember:
4WD
does not protect
form ditching.
 The
participant from Australia managed to manouver himself into the ditch even
without any external help. Well, we have to admit: He had to drive on the
wrong side of the road all the time. An
effect the author is very familiar with from
a former
trip to Britain where
he lost a tire ("Don't
drive so close to the curb all the time!").
 A
team from Belgium deserves the award for the most frequent open bonnet.
At
the
petrol station, he checked the
tank and filled up the oil. Just
for the raid, a completely overhauled engine was installed.
9.5
liters of oil
for 6500 km correspond to a
mixture of 1:43.
That
sounds a bit too much even
for a
two-stroke engine.
 Last
but not least I'd
like to report the perhaps funniest Poronkusema.
A
Belgian 2CV van
had a manual starter cable the way it used to be in the 60s.
Belgian 2CV van
had a manual starter cable the way it used to be in the 60s.
One
morning the driver forgot to
turn on the ignition.
to
turn on the ignition. When he realised
this after
one or two minutes
of starting in vain, he quickly switched on the ignition.
This led to an
explosion of the
carefully accumulated fuel-air mixture in the first muffler Auspuffquertopf
and subsequent repair hours.
 One
intended incident for Raid newbies could be called "poronkusema"
as well: The Polar baptism. Unfortunately for the novices and to the delight
of all the other participants, Henkka again spared no effort to smuggle a
tin of long expired fermented herring from Sweden to Finland. This so called
"surströmming" is considered a delicacy only in Sweden. The
adventure of smelling the manure gas when opening the can is absolutely
indescribable. Instantly, all fir trees within a mile dropped their needles.
The poor novices bravely ate their share and drove off with the windows
open. Poor passengers.
Besides
the mentioned adverse events, we very much enjoyed winter driving with our
2CVs in the enchanted landscape of Lapland. There
is hardly a better car for snowy roads. Often
we intentionally choose lonely backroads, which were not cleared from all
snow. The
retreaded Italian (!) studded tires pulled our duck at 100 kph over the bare
ice like a train on rails. At
several places we literally drove on ice: As soon as the ice is thick
enough, ice roads are layed out are on the lakes and even on the Baltic Sea.
For
many participants, this was the most impressive driving experience.
There
is not enough room to show all pictures here. A
small video (6 MB) from Vehu shows the Frozen
Duck band live on stage. Pertti
from Kajaani wrote the Raid Poronkusema song. Karsten,
SB-CV 911
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Raid Poronkusema:
