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Some of my old racer chums say Saarinen won a lot of races in the beginning, not because he was more talented than any of the other top riders, but because he hadn’t had a big crash before and pushed harder than they did. However, after he had his first big crash he wasn’t quite as quick, but they didn’t mean any disrespect to his abilities.
As for certain riders surviving whereas others didn’t, I was taught: There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.
 
Andy J said:
Some of my old racer chums say Saarinen won a lot of races in the beginning, not because he was more talented than any of the other top riders, but because he hadn’t had a big crash before and pushed harder than they did. However, after he had his first big crash he wasn’t quite as quick, but they didn’t mean any disrespect to his abilities.
As for certain riders surviving whereas others didn’t, I was taught: There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.
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Some say the same about Márquez; pain is a big teacher of limits.
 
chrisk said:
Turku, previously Abo? That’s where my grandfather came from!
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Turku is the Finnish name of it, and Åbo (Obo) is the Swedish name of it. Were back then and are still.
Both read on the road signs on top of each other. Finland has had two famous Laverda importers, the first in 1970's was at Helsinki, the latter was near Turku in 1980's and onwards. The latter also sold used bikes and spares up to around 2015.
 
Andy J said:
Some of my old racer chums say Saarinen won a lot of races in the beginning, not because he was more talented than any of the other top riders, but because he hadn’t had a big crash before and pushed harder than they did. ...
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I think driving too close to his limits was surely true especially in the beginning of his racing career, but I think it would sound very strange if claimed that he didn't done many very unusual things that gained his success. Probably this must then apply to everyone else back then on the top? Or is this something still very unknown?

In Finland Saarinen was considered as multitalent also when doing many other things than driving motorcycles or working as a mechanic with almost incredible success on it at the same time, that is very rare anyway.
I think having a talent may be quite subjective anyway, but these above makes me thinking if this talent phrase may be a some kind of worn explanation from those who had less success.
 
One little story about Saarinen was that he was " careful " with money ........ not mean , just careful ............

This extended to avoiding paying taxes if at all possible .

He was so confident he was going to win the 1973 Daytona 200 , that he had a plane seat lined up back to Europe immediately after the race ended ....... Armed with his winnings in cash , he was on the plane and jetting back to Finland before the Inland Revenue Service had realised what had happened .......

The IRS eventually got the AMA to cough up the missing revenue ........ from that point on the AMA made sure any winnings paid out to individuals was taxed at source ......
 
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rocketonarail said:
One little story about Saarinen was that he was " careful " with money ........ not mean , just careful ............

This extended to avoiding paying taxes if at all possible .

He was so confident he was going to win the 1973 Daytona 200 , that he had a plane seat lined up back to Europe immediately after the race ended ....... Armed with his winnings in cash , he was on the plane and jetting back to Finland before the Inland Revenue Service had realised what had happened .......

The IRS eventually got the AMA to cough up the missing revenue ........ from that point on the AMA made sure any winnings paid out to individuals was taxed at source ......
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I think I haven't heard this one. Finland has a very difficult and complicated system for taxation, and decades ago many international contracts were missing to avoid double taxation. Probably he still needed to pay very high taxes from that for Finland. And still would have needed to pay it if it would be taxed for first time locally for IRS. I guess the penalty in USA for not paying the tax would have been a joke if compared what would have happened to him in Finland for not paying a tax from it.
 
The above story was taken from Ted Macauley`s book Yamaha ( 1979) .........

The quotes below from the same book are from Rod Gould in the main part , padded out with some slightly flouncy additions by Macauley ...... ( He was a tabloid newspaper journalist after all .... ) ..........

Screenshot (3241).pngScreenshot (3242).png
 
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These guys came straight from drum brakes where they used both ends so he was used to using a lot of rear brake. Later on rear brakes were used much less or not at all, until they were used as traction control exiting the corner, and now they use the rear as much as possible again, gone full circle.
 
Just chanced upon this from February 1977 ........

£100 for winning the 1976 Avon championship almost seems laughable ........ even in 1976 terms it doesn`t seem much , although I believe Pete received a bonus from Roger Slater for each win ........ but even so ..............

Extra money if you won using Avon Roadrunners of course , but Slaters / Davies famously condemned racing on Roadrunners , using Pirelli Gordons , which they ( and the Jota ) much preferred .

Cash prize fund increased from £1000 to £2000 for 1977 , but that year Roy Armstrong won the series on his Moto Guzzi Le Mans .......... typical !

Screenshot (5742).png
 
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Just as a postscript , and has been mentioned on here before .......... The reason Roy won in 1977 was due to the fact that Pete Davies had a nasty accident whilst racing on road tyres , as stipulated by the organisers ...... causing Slaters to withdraw from the remaining rounds in protest ......

Although they were back in 1978 and again in 1979 ...... winning the championship both times .
 
rocketonarail said:
Just as a postscript , and has been mentioned on here before .......... The reason Roy won in 1977 was due to the fact that Pete Davies had a nasty accident whilst racing on road tyres , as stipulated by the organisers ...... causing Slaters to withdraw from the remaining rounds in protest ......

Although they were back in 1978 and again in 1979 ...... winning the championship both times .
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So how did Slaters get around the 'road bike' tyre dilemma? Were they on 'specials'?
 
piranha-bro2 said:
So how did Slaters get around the 'road bike' tyre dilemma? Were they on 'specials'?
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Not sure ........ I guess they just found a road tyre ( the Gordons ) which worked as well as they could expect , and took it from there .......

There was thing in some sections of the bike press at the time which suggested the Jota , when ridden hard , was nearing it`s safety limit on road tyres ........

LJK Setright in his Bike magazine column , said ..... " what are we to make of a bike which is admitted to be too much of a handful on it`s standard road tyres " ........ referencing Slaters criticism of the Avon Series regulations insisting on road tyres being used .... ( Avons way of saying that if we`re going to support the series , then we will want to promote our own road tyres as part of that deal , and everyone else will just have to go along with it ...... ) ........

Setright went on to say that he had to fit a front racing tyre ( type unspecified ) to a road going Jota " in order to make it steer " ...... ( this was the same Setright that Bike editor Mike Nicks once said was lapped about three times in one session by all the other journos at a Honda CX500 circuit launch ....... pottering down the straights at a steady 70 mph , and acting as a mobile chicane in alll the corners ..... ) ......

Roger Slater replied to Setright by saying that no one in their right mind would find the Jota`s limits on PUBLIC ROADS ... ( his initials ) ... with the standard Dunlop TT100 tyres it came fitted with ........ but obviously expecting people to race on standard road tyres was a different thing altogether , especially in the case of the Jota , which was one of the fastest , and to put it mildly , more demanding bikes to hustle around a circuit at racing speeds .......

" You have to get hold of the bastard and tell it it IS going to go around the corner at this speed ....... lovely bike to ride though ... " .... ( Mr Davies ) .......

I`m assuming the road tyre rule still applied in `78 and ``79 ........ so as I said at the beginning , presumably they made the best of a bad situation , and just got on with it ..........
 
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