Jarno Saarinen
Jarno Saarinen was
born in Turku, in Southern Finland, on December 11, 1945. Like his three
brothers, motorcycles and racing them was very important for him.
He was a
very good technician. He studied at the Turku Technical Institute and graduated
in 1971 as an car-engineer. He was a perfectionist in maintaining his bikes and
he was a thinker. His near-vertical clip-ons were his “trade-mark” and were
copied by some of his fellow-countryman.
Jarno
made his first steps in racing on ice. In 1962 he participated in an ice-race
for the first time. He was a member of the Tunturi-“works”-team at an age of 16
years (Tunturi was a factory in Turku where Puch-mopeds and motorcycles were
assembled). He became second in his first ice-race on a 150cc Puch. Jarno
became, like many of his Finnish rivals, a very experienced rider, because he
raced on ice, tarmac, sand- and grass-track, enduro’s etc.
In 1965
he was Finnish champion ice-racing in the 250cc. Later on he specialised in
road-racing. In 1969 he became Finnish Champion in the 125cc on a Puch and in
the 250cc on a self-made Yamaha.
In 1970
Jarno wanted to see the world. Participating in the Grands Prix was in his mind
the best way to do so. Because he didn’t have enough money to buy a good bike,
he went to three Turku banks to ask for a “study”-loan. He received money from
all the three and he bought a new Yamaha 250cc TD2 production-racer for it!
In his
first Grand Prix, the West-German, he finished a good 6th. The following races
were even better. Twice he finished 3rd and 4 times he became fourth. In his
own GP, at Imatra, he had to stop with engine-trouble. After that he needed all
his time for his study. At that moment he tied for points with Kel Carruthers
for second place, but he didn’t race in the last GP’s. At the end of the
1970-season he was 4th. in the title-standings. Not a bad result in his first
GP-year. He became Finnish champion in the 250cc class.
In 1971
he became bikes from Finnish importer Arwidson, a 250 and a 350 Yamaha. These
bikes were not so very reliable in the first GP’s, but later in the season
Jarno got them going like he wished.
His
first G.P.-win was the GP of Czechoslovakia at Brno, where MV Agusta-star
Giacomo Agostini was sidelined with machine-trouble. Some weeks later he won
the 350cc GP of Italy at Monza and to show the world what was to come in 1972
he won the 250cc GP of Spain. Jarno also had some outings on a 50cc Van Veen
Kreidler!
He became
champion the Finnish 250 and 350cc classes.
1972 was
a very good year for privat-rider Saarinen. Again sponsored by Arwidsons, he
beat golden boy Giacomo Agostini on the mighty 350cc MV Agusta fair-and-square
on the Nürburgring, in the West-German GP. In the Czechoslovak GP he notched a
double! He won both the 250 and 350cc races. In his own GP, again at Imatra, he
became the champion of the world in the 250cc. In the 350-class he finished in
second place for the title, behind Agostini.
At the
end of the season Jarno raced at some international races in England, for
instance the Race of the Year. He won all the 9 races he competed in!
In
Finland, again, he became champion in the 250cc and 350cc classes.
Two
factories asked Jarno to ride for them in 1973. First he tried the 350 and
500cc four-stroke Benelli-fours, but also Yamaha let him know they were very
interested in him. As turned out later, they had plans to launch a new
four-cylinder 500cc racer to beat the MV Agustas in 1973. Jarno signed for Yamaha,
the factory who made the bikes he had raced on in all his 250 and 350cc GP’s
before.
In the
first months of 1973 Jarno showed the world his fine form by winning the famous
Daytona 200-miles race and the Imola 200 with 350cc Yamahas, against a whole
bunch of 750cc. bikes!
In the
first GP, at Paul Ricard in France he won both the 250 and the 500cc races. He
repeated this performance in Austria, on the Salzburgring. He won the 250cc
again at Hockenheim in West-Germany, but had to stop in the 500cc race after a
hectic struggle for the lead with Phil Read. Jarno’s chain broke at 220 kph!
May 20,
1973, the day of the Italian GP at Monza became the saddest day in GP-history.
In the 250cc race Jarno Saarinen and Renzo Pasolini were killed in the most
horrible accident ever. Pasolini slid off, it was said on oil from Walter
Villa’s 350cc Benelli during a race before, his bike was catapulted back on the
circuit by the steel-barriers, Jarno crashed hard against the bike. Twelve
other riders fell and some of them became
more or less serious injuries. The organizers of the Italian GP at Monza
has been criticized until this very moment for the bad circumstances for racing
in their 1973-event and for the bad organization that year.
Jarno
always stayed a legend because he was such a nice man. He was open and honest,
a friendly man, he liked joking and was very helpful. Together with his
girl-friend Soili, later his wife, he always lived in a Volkswagen “Kleinbuss”,
as the Finnish say. He was a fantastic rider and a very good mechanic. Until
1973, when he became a Yamaha-worksrider, he always prepared his bikes himself,
sometimes until 4 o’clock in the morning!. His riding-style was very much
influenced by his ice-race experience. Some of his rivals had mixed feelings about
his “wild” riding in his first GP’s. Nevertheless, he only crashed once in a
GP-race, until that dreadful crash at Monza in 1973 that wasn’t his own
fault.