Had Monza’s managerial madness not
intervened he would, I’m very sure, have won
the premier championship.
There was talk at the time that Pasolini had
gone down on oil blown from a smoking
Benelli 350/4 as several riders had aired
concerns about it. But again, management
failed to step up and no remedial removal
or covering (dusting) was carried out. The
same management had earlier allowed the
billowing Benelli to continue racing when it
should have been black-flagged off the track.
Further down the track it was announced
that engineering checks on Pasolini’s bike
showed it appeared to have seized… so I
guess the chaps who allowed the oil to fall
and do nothing about it felt better after that.
The only positive from the terrible negative
that day was the realisation that safety
measures needed to be improved, and the
power of the riders also emerged as the likes
of Barry Sheene and Steve Baker, and pretty
well all the top lads, made it clear that if
things weren’t right they wouldn’t ride.
And on several occasions that happened.
They packed up and left circuits they were
unhappy with.
I guess it’s all part of the evolution of
motorsport. Check out the kit the riders
donned a decade earlier through the ‘60s.
Pudding bowl helmets and goggles… and
very basic leathers… whew.
Safety has come a long way, and as the
machinery has got quicker it had to. But
when it takes a tragedy of any sort across
the whole landscape of life to spark
improvements to prevent it happening again
then that is almost equally tragic. Renzo
Pasolini and Jarno Saarinen would likely both
still be with us in glorious retirement had
those horrific steel barriers not been where
they were.
Oh, and Jarno’s face will always look at me from
within the framed picture on my den’s wall.