Jarno Saarinen

[Xiphias]

It would have been nice to see what would have happened........ :'(

Jarno Saarinen The Legend Part.1

[fastwin]

Being an old fart I remember when he won the Daytona 200 in 1973 on a Yamaha two stroke twin. He also was a key development rider for Yamaha in them producing the awesome 4 cylinder 500cc two stroke GP bike and was tagged by Yammyhammer to take on Ago and company in the 500ccGPs in '73. I think he still remains the only Finn to win a World Championship.

Very cool vid! Thanks for posting that. Brought back a s#@t load of memories. Neat days for sure.

[fastwin]

Wow, just had to watch that vid again this morning. So cool. Loved all the US racing shots and vids, They were the ones where he was on the yellow/black "bumble bee" livery bikes. Great shot of him leading Yvon DuHammel (#17) and a nice one of him in the winner's circle with Kel Carruthers. Again, really cool post. How in the world did you find something so obscure? 99% of riders wouldn't even know who he is? Nice one!

[Xiphias]

I was reading about some past greats. Jarno's name jumped as one of the first racers who developed knee out/lean of the bike (which was master by Kenny Rogers). I thought the clips of Jarno were pretty special.

[fastwin]

I didn't know Kenny Rogers hung a knee out when he was performing onstage! He must have picked up on that from his friend Kenny Roberts.

Jarno's live was cut way too short, so was Pasolini's. There was no way to avoid Paso when he went down and many riders were badly hurt in that crash. There was rumored to be debris or gas/oil on the track left by previous racers where they crashed.

Not many people know about his 250GP World Championship ('72??) or the Daytona 200 win.

One of my all time favorite American road racers whose life was cut terribly short was Cal Rayborn. He and Jarno both died in 1973... damn, that's 36 years ago! I'm getting old! The list of great riders from the past is HUGE. It's really neat to look back at their accomplishments knowing (hopefully!) 36 years from now someone will be looking up some guy named Valentino Rossi!

Hey, just curious, how do you like your '09 R1?