The True Cause of the Tragic Accident at the Start of the 1973 250cc Italian GP at .

On the 20th May 1973 there was a horrific crash at the first corner of the 250cc Italian GP held at the historic Monza track. From the flag the pack of riders accelerated down the main straight towards the Curva Grande, a kilometre from the start. On a Yamaha TD3, it would normally be taken flat out in 6th gear, at about 145 mph. led ahead of two other riders with , and Hideo Kanaya close behind. Entering the first part of the bend Pasolini’s bike slid from under him and Saarinen could not avoid him and crashed. Kanaya forced his bike to the outside and hit the straw bales in front of the Armco barriers. Twelve of the following riders also crashed and Pasolini and Saarinen died in the ensuing melee. The tragic news reverberated around the -racing world and was received tremendous shock. Veteran Pasolini would be sadly missed, particularly by the Italian tifose and young Jarno Saarinen even more so by those from wider afield. His works career had only just begun but already he had a big following all over the world as is shown by several websites devoted to keeping his name and memory alive today. It is probable that his sad demise changed the future of motorcycle racing and that of Yamaha in particular. He was in a good position to take the 500cc-world title in 1973 and development of the straight four Yamaha would have continued and a run of premier titles was on the cards, such that it would have been very unlikely that would have come over to Europe. The 1982 OW61 V4 was designed to suite Roberts' riding style and this set the pattern for the 500cc class until the rules were changed to throw the two-strokes out of GPs in 2002. Would the same course of development have been followed if Saarinen had been Yamaha’s number one rider during the second half of the 70s?

Yamaha were deeply shocked at the death of Jarno Saarinen, it was the first time that one of their riders had been killed. All the top brass were in to meet the Yamaha outboard motor importer and they visited Monza for a day out to watch Saarinen add to his list of victories on their bikes. The team manager was devastated and spent the next three nights talking to Japan for hours at a time. They published the results of an investigation by German photographer and journalist Volker Rauch in a free booklet entitled “Document of an Accident”. The interviews with riders quoted in the document will be constantly referred to in this article. As a mark of respect, Yamaha pulled out of the GPs and did no development work on the 500cc straight four and it was virtually unchanged when Agostini tried it in the close season after signing to ride for them in 1974. A Board of Inquiry was set up by the authorities but their full report did not come into the public domain for another 20 years and then only in Italy and did not become known in Europe until a chance encounter in 2001!

When Renzo Pasolini’s bike slid from under him at the first corner after the start of the 250 race, the aftermath resulted in a number of victims. The main victims were obviously Pasolini and Jarno Saarinen, who were both tragically killed. Next in line were the relatives of the riders, like Renzo’s family and Jarno’s young wife, Soili, who was looking forward to settling down and raising a family with her childhood sweetheart. Then there were the teams and in particular the mechanics who had prepared the bikes involved in the crash. Often they became very close to their rider and a loss was like losing a member of the family and quite naturally they would wonder if their preparation was at fault. Other riders involved in the crash became victims, such as , who lost consciousness for several hours and suffered severe shock and could not speak for three days. But more than that, he was a victim because he was blamed for the accident as a result of his actions in the preceding 350cc race. What has not been apparent until 2001, however, is that truth also became a victim. Even after 30 years, emotions are still raw, particularly for the people closest like Soili and I am reluctant to reopen these sore wounds but I feel that the truth has to be told and revealed to the motor cycle racing world at large.

Now first impressions often become lasting impressions and modern day Public Relations personnel realize how important this is and, cynically in my view, have it down to a fine art. They know that if you can refute a story or accusation right at the beginning, it does not matter whether what you put out is true or not, this is what the majority of people will remember. It is similar too when newspapers have to retract a story or make an apology. It is always just a line or two in small print, buried away in the bowls of the paper where very few people will see it and the original report is what remains in the minds of the majority of people.

The blame for the fatal crash was laid at three possible causes.

1. The Monza Track

2. Oil Deposited on the Track by Water Villa's in the Preceding 350cc Race.

3. Seizure of one or more of the Leading Bikes.

1. The Monza Track.

One thinks of the as a wide, open track but in the reports of the tragedy, the Curva Grande was said to be rather narrow, being only 9 metres wide. This is not particularly narrow since Donnington in the UK, a modern track, is only 10 metres wide but, compared with the wide start and finish straight at Monza, the track through the Curva Grande may have appeared to have been so. Armco barriers had been erected for car racing after a car had left the track and killed a number of spectators and hedges had been planted to protect the racers but they were put behind the Armco barriers! Just prior to the 1973 Italian GP, the surface had been patched up in the Curva Grande and it was not level, there was a difference of several centimetres. Jarno Saarinen was unhappy about the Armco barriers, which in the event of a crash could throw the rider and his machine back into the path of the on-coming riders. He was also concerned about the unevenness in the levels of the track in the Curva Grande and that a different material had been used to the original surface.

He approached the officials and protested quite vehemently but they just shrugged their shoulders and said it was too late to do anything about it. This was a common tactic used by race officials in the days of the Continental Circus. They knew that the riders had to race to pay the bills and would not boycott the meeting. The tag Continental Circus, by which the group of riders that contested the GPs were known, was an apt one even though it was originally intended in a romantic sense. They were like a circus travelling the continent setting up their tents at each place, performing and then packing up and travelling on to the next stop, only to do it all again. It was appropriate in another more basic way, they were like performing animals, exploited by the organizers, paid peanuts, just enough to keep body and soul together, in the knowledge that if they did not perform, if they did not race, they would not be able to eat.

With Armco barriers surrounding the Monza track it was obviously not a safe place to race and if you came off and hit one of the barriers you stood the risk of being seriously injured. But Monza was not alone, the Continental Circus raced at the Armco lined and numerous road circuits like the IOM, Brno, , Nurburgring and Dunrod etc where the track was lined by even more dangerous kerbs and walls. The riders knew about the risks and presumably raced accordingly. The tracks needed to be improved and over the following years this happened, the road circuits disappeared and run off areas and chicanes were added to the tracks like Monza but can this circuit be held primarily responsible for the fatalities of May 1973?

As the Curva Grande was a bend rather than a corner, the angle of lean would not have been very great. Any bikes that crashed would hit the Armco at a fairly shallow angle and come off at shallow angle and would tend to run parallel to the barrier, rather than bounce back across the track at right angles. As it was the first corner after the start, the riders were in a very tight bunch and even if there had been no Armco barrier, it is highly likely that the following bikes would have hit the riders who had crashed at the head of the pack. Hideo Kanaya said that he forced his bike to the outside and hit the straw bales lining the Armco. The inference was that he was trying to avoid the fallen riders and felt he stood a better chance of surviving if he hit the straw-baled barrier rather than ending up in the melee of crashing bikes and that the latter were not going towards the Armco head-on. Kanaya said that Jarno crashed to the left but his body ended up lying on the right side of the track. Some eye witness accounts said that Saarinen was trying to sit up after the initial crash and the injuries he sustained and the position his body was found confirm that he was hit by a following bike.

2. Oil spilled on the track by Walter Villa’s Benelli in the preceding 350 race.

In the 350cc race, the late Walter Villa was riding a 350 four cylinder, four-stroke, air-cooled Benelli and was in third place between Lansivuori, who lay second and the battle for fourth between Johnny Dodds and Andersson. About 8 laps from the end, i.e. two-thirds distance, Dodds and Andersson felt their rear wheels sliding coming out of some of the corners. They noticed oil lines on the track and there were 3 or 4 with 4 laps to go. They realized it was being left by the rider in front of them but they could not see who it was because of the large cloud of blue oil smoke coming from his exhaust. They caught him on the penultimate lap and saw that it was Walter Villa on the Benelli and he had his feet down sliding round the corners. Villa went into the pits but as there was only one lap to go, his team sent him out to finish the race. It was an Italian rider on an Italian bike in an Italian team at the Italian GP, need I say any more. Despite the pit stop he finished in 5th place, only 15 secs behind Dodds and Anderson.

Now 30 years ago, Public Relations were hardly heard of and certainly in that respect they were, without question, the good old days. Then, first impressions were a coincidence of circumstance and the initial impression of the riders was that Pasolini had crashed on oil deposited on the racing line by Walter Villa’s ailing Benelli in the preceding 350cc race. John Dodds, one of the riders following Villa in the 350 race, tried to tell the officials about the oil and get them to clean the track before the 250 race was started but no one would listen and they even called the police to eject him! They physically pushed him out of the office and threatened not to let him take part in the following 250cc race. A French journalist had a similar experience when he remonstrated with a track marshal and asked him to show the oil-warning flag during the 350 race. Police were called and he was threatened with eviction from the track.

Therefore, when a whole group of the leading riders crashed at the first corner and the two star riders, Pasolini and Saarinen were killed, it was natural for the riders to jump to the conclusion that they had crashed on the oil. In their view, the responsibility for this must rest with the organizers because in the first instant they had not pulled Villa in when oil smoke was pouring from the Benelli and secondly they had not cleaned the track before the 250 race. Unfortunately in those days it was a case of them and us and this relationship was the result of the organizer’s attitude to the riders. It was a constant battle to get a start and a reasonable starting money offer, the organizers always held the whip hand. When I refer to organizers, the controlling body, the FIM are included, because both parties were in cohorts, they worked together to exploit the riders.

It would appear that for 16 of the 24 laps, the Benelli of Villa was running OK and 8 laps from the finish a piston in one of the cylinders started to break up. Villa was then in third place between Lansivuori and the battle for fourth between Dodds and Andersson. At the finish there was a 30-second gap between second and third/fourth with fifth placed Villa another 15 seconds down. It is probable that the gap between Lansivuori and the Dodds/Andersson duo was never more than the 30 seconds that separated them at the end of the race and it was more than likely that it was around 20 seconds at two-thirds distance. Dodds and Andersson caught Villa on the penultimate lap so it took them 7 laps to catch him, once his Benelli began losing power. Villa would have lost about 4 seconds per lap if he was the full 30 seconds in front of the duo but if he was between 10 and 20 seconds ahead when his machine struck trouble he would have been lapping only 2 seconds and 2 mph slower. If the cylinder with the piston breaking up was not producing any power, then the output from the engine would have been reduced by 25 % and Villa would have lost more than a few seconds per lap on what was essentially a power circuit. The sick cylinder must still have been producing power and some combustion would have been taking place but with oil passing above the piston this could only have been partially complete, hence the oil smoke from the exhaust. This smoke would have contained a mixture of unburnt, partially burnt and completely burnt oil and fuel. Oil and fuel are hydrocarbons and when their combustion is complete, the end products are carbon dioxide and water, whereas incomplete combustion will produce carbon in addition and carbon is black. It is safe to assume, therefore, that not all the oil lost from Villa’s bike would have remained as oil.

From the statements of John Dodds and Kent Andersson it is very easy to get the impression that once his Benelli had developed the fault, Walter Villa was running through all the corners with his feet down. But they said that because of the cloud of oil smoke, they could not see who was in front of them until they caught up with him on the penultimate lap, at the end of which he made a quick call into the pits. It stands to reason that the closer they got to him, the more difficult it would have been to see him because the oil smoke would have zoomed ever larger and they did not say that they passed him. It is more than likely, therefore, that they only saw him in the last corner, the Parabolica, when the 180 degree, horseshoe shaped bend which took the riders back on themselves would have produced an angle that would have made Villa visible to them beyond the oil smoke cloud. The Parabolica is the most acute corner on the Monza racetrack and Villa would have taken the precaution of putting his feet down there because the oily smoke mist could have got onto the side of the rear tyre and made it greasy.

The 4 cylinder Benelli, in common with most four-strokes of that era, had a dry sump so there would not have been a lot of excess oil slopping about in the crankcase. If large amounts of oil had been getting past the failing piston, it would have fouled the plug and no power would have been produced from that cylinder. In fact it would have consumed power since the other cylinders would have had to overcome the compression of the dead cylinder.

If we look at the race results and do a few calculations the above can be more than substantiated.

350cc Race 24 Laps 85.75 Miles m s gap mph 1 G. Agostini I MV 42 5.5 122.23 2 T. Lansivuori SF Yamaha 42 15.3 9.8s 121.76 3 K. Andersson S Yamaha 42 46.0 30.7s 120.30 4 J. Dodds AUS Yamaha 42 46.9 0.9s 120.26 5 W. Villa I Benelli 43 1.0 14.1s 119.61

The gap of 30 seconds between Lansivuori and the Andersson/Dodds battle would probably have only been around 20 seconds at two-thirds distance so Villa would not have been more than 20seconds ahead of the duo when one of his pistons started to break up. Let us assume that he was half way between them, then his speed for the first two-thirds of the race would have been 121 mph. If 10 seconds were knocked off of his final time to take account of his call into the pits, his overall speed for the race would have been 120.07mph. Using a simple algebraic equation, his speed for the last third of the race can be calculated.

121mph x 66.7% + y mph x 33.3% = 120.07mph. Therefore y = 118.21mph

Now power required rises by the cube of the speed, i.e. twice the speed requires eight times the power.

Using this relationship it is possible to calculate the loss of power that a drop of speed from 120.07 mph to 118.21 mph would produce and this works out at between 6% and 7%. With four pots, each cylinder produces 25% of the power so the cylinder with the faulty piston had lost just over 25% of its power. Even if Villa was right behind 2nd man Lansivuori when the problem began, the cylinder with the faulty cylinder would still have been producing over half of its full power, so good combustion and considerable burning of the oil that was entering the combustion chamber would have been taking place. The image I got initially of Walter Villa touring round, feet down with a very sick motor belching out loads of oil is therefore far from the truth. The billowing cloud of oil smoke was, in itself, a testimony that a large portion of the oil was being burnt. These calculations are based on the assumption that the corners were taken at the same speed in both parts of the race and therefore cancelled each other out and the loss of power down the straights was solely responsible for the drop in speed. In fact, it could be argued that Villa was going through the corners slower after the piston started to break up and this deficit had to be made up down the straights and therefore the loss in power was smaller than that calculated.

The late Walter Villa would appear to be an honourable person and the reasons why I came to this view will be revealed later. In an interview for Klaas Tjassens’ book ‘Jarno Saarinen The Flying Fin’ a year or so before he died, Walter said that of the 3.5 litres of oil that his Benelli held at the beginning of the race, 2.0 litres was left at the end. If you deduct 0.5 litres for the normal consumption during a race at a high speed track where you are on full throttle most of the time, you are left with 1.0 litres lost from the exhaust due to the piston breaking up. If half of it remained unburnt and was spread around the Monza track in a band 15cms (6 inches) wide, the oil would have been only 0.5 thousands of a mm thick! I have no doubt from the account of eyewitnesses that a greasy layer of liquid was deposited on the track from Villa’s ailing Benelli. It may have been as a mist and the partially burnt carbon would have accentuated the black appearance that oil gives and it probably also contained some condensed water vapour and any form of liquid would have made the track slippery. John Dodds and Kent Andersson found that their rear wheels were sliding at times and Dodds specifically said it happened first in the Curva Parabolica. Now this is a 180-degree corner that requires the greatest angle of lean of all the corners at Monza and they came upon it completely unaware that anything had been deposited on the track and yet they did not crash, the back wheel just stepped out a little. The deposit would have been most slippery then, when it was first laid down. If they did not crash on the oil, it is even more unlikely that the 250cc riders would have been brought down by it. Ted Macauley reported that the oil line in the Curva Grande was only 1.5 inches wide!

There was a suggestion that Pasolini was not aware of the greasy deposit when he lined up for the start of the following 250 race. He had retired from the 350 race before Villa’s bike had struck trouble and no one could recall him being warned about the oil. I find that difficult to believe because the cloud of oil smoke from Villa’s Benelli was so big Dodds and Andersson could not see it was Villa that they were following until they caught and passed him when he stopped at the pits. Pasolini would have had to have locked himself away in the toilet until the 250s were called to the line not to have been aware of the oil and I dare say, if he had, he would probably still have been able to smell it! Klaas Tjassens reports that Pasolini ran off the track whilst leading the 350 race when his 350 Harley Davidson encountered piston trouble (!) so he was probably stuck at the side of the track and witnessed the Benelli’s plight and its oil smoke at first hand. Also, the oil line was right round the track so it would have been visible on the start/finish straight and on the run down to the Curva Grande.

Dieter Braun led the 250 field into the Curva Grande from the start on his Yamaha TD3 and said that normally, he would take it flat out in top gear, 6th, at a speed of about 145mph. As its name would suggest it was clearly more of a bend than a corner. The angle of lean would have not been that great and it is unlikely that a bike would slide completely from under a rider if it crossed a thin strip of greasy substance. Braun knew about the oil loss and said that, therefore, he took the bend in fifth gear at no more than 135mph on an outer line. Victor Palomo said that Pasolini went into the bend on the left side, which for a right-hand bend means that Renzo too was taking an outside line. He was one or two bikes behind Braun and if he had not been aware of the oil, surely he would have tried to take it at the normal speed and overtaken the riders in front of him.

3. Seizure of the Engines in Pasolini's Harley-Davidson and Saarinen's Yamaha.

There was a suggestion at the time by the organizers that both the engines of Pasolini’s Harley Davidson and Saarinen’s Yamahas must have seized. Is this a case of first impressions? said he did not see any oil and he thought Pasolini’s bike might have seized. After the race rumours persisted that Pasolini’s bike had seized and there was also a suggestion that Saarinen’s bike had done the same. Klaas Tjassens said that it was also categorically stated that Pasolini’s bike had NOT seized. He did not say who had made that statement but it is safe to assume that it came from the Harley-Davidson camp, another case of first impressions? It was said that Yamaha and Harley-Davidson had agreed to allow each other’s mechanics to examine the bikes but this did not happen. Ferry Brouwer and Masayasu Mizoguchi opened up the two Yamahas in the presence of the Board of Inquiry and both had completely free moving pistons and there was no evidence of any damage inside the engine. They were not present when Pasolini’s bike was opened up and they never did see inside the engine of the Harley-Davidson!

The Continental Circus moved on and they never did hear the result of the Board of Inquiry. There was a summary of the initial findings published in a Finish magazine soon afterwards and it said that they found two possible alternative causes of the crash. Either the Harley-Davidson seized or Pasolini made a mistake and they completely ruled out the possibility of oil on the Curva Grande. The big wide world and the motorcycle racing fraternity, in particular, never got to know of the Board of Inquiry’s findings and the story of oil from Villa’s Benelli stuck and was passed down the decades. It would appear that the full report was not published and the summary was released in Finland to buy time following the tremendous feeling of loss in that country.

Ferry Brouwer had never been happy with the blame being laid at Villa’s door. He did not accept that oil on the track had brought the riders down and had always suspected that Pasolini’s bike had seized. Imagine his reaction when, during a visit to a private museum in Rimini in Italy in 2001, he saw two pages from an Italian motorcycle magazine framed and hanging on the wall with pictures from the Board of Inquiry showing that both cylinders of Pasolini’s bike had seized! He had found the answer that had been hidden for 28 years! The item had been published in 1993 and yet still it had not become public knowledge in the world of motorcycle racing.

Understandably, very little attention had been given to the water-cooled cylinders of the Harley-Davidson because the findings of The Board of Inquiry had been kept under raps. The pictures in the Italian magazine show some very Heath Robinson cylinders with part water-cooling, part air-cooling. In 1972 Yamaha added water-cooling to some of their ‘works’ bikes and the following year it became standard on the TZ250A and TZ350A production racers. Harley-Davidson knew that to be competitive with the Yamahas, they too would have to convert their bikes to water-cooling but, unfortunately, there was a long strike in the metal industry in Italy in 1973 and they could not get the new water-cooled cylinders made.

At the first GP of 1973 in France on 22nd April, the two works water-cooled Yamahas of Saarinen and Kanaya trounced the Harley-Davidsons of Pasolini and Rougerie, as they had feared. They missed the next two races, Austria on the 6th of May and Germany on the 13th of May but their home race, the Italian GP, was due to be held on 20th May at Monza. They could not give their home race a miss and let the Italian tifose down but, at the same time, they did not want to be humiliated by Yamaha and they decided to make their own water-cooled cylinders. If you look closely at the photo in Tuttomoto below, it appears that they used an original cylinder. From the base up to the top of the inlet and exhaust ports it has the original air-cooled finning but above the ports the fining has been removed and a water jacket has been cast onto it.

Insert page from Tuttomoto 1993 showing Pasolini’s bike.

Mixing ail-cooling with water-cooling would be a little dodgy because the two systems would allow expansion at different rates. I understand from a very reliable source that new pistons were installed in Pasolini’s bike before the race and they were not run in and also, the thermostat was not working so the recipe for disaster was all there. The water in the cylinder jacket would have been piping hot whereas the water in the radiator would have been cold and a seizure was inevitable, it was just a question of time. In those days there were no sighting laps, the bikes were warmed up on the grid before the order was given to kill the engines prior to the push start. Then, from the start, the riders would have accelerated hard up through the gears and been on full throttle in top, flat out, as they approached the Curva Grande, a kilometre from the line.

The report of the Board of Inquiry stated that the Harley Davidson of Renzo Pasolini seized and the translation of the page of Tuttomoto that Ferry Brouwer found in Italy in 1992 is as follows;

The Evidence is Revealed in the Photographs

A Seized Piston

The bike of Renzo Pasolini had the name of Harley Davidson on the tank but to those at Varese it was an that was raced. The photo to the right shows the bike as it was presented after the Monza accident. The tank and seat had come off and the right hand side of the fairing shows evidence of being scraped along the ground for some distance and the screen is broken. As far as you can tell from the photo the frame appears to be in good condition.

Top left-hand photo. The signs of the seizure are very evident 45 degrees from the position where the connecting is located.

Top right-hand photo. The right piston seen at another angle showing where it jammed in the throat.

Bottom left- hand photo. The marks the seizure left in the cylinder and as can be clearly seen from the bottom right hand photo this is happened in the lower portion of the cylinder, which was cooled by air. Colombo said the cylinder was a temporary solution.

If Pasolini had been brought down by the oil he would have experienced something like a high-side and the rear wheel, after first sliding on the oil, would have gripped and thrown him into the air. The evidence of the damage on the fairing indicates that the bike slid a long way on its side and witnesses said that Renzo hit the barrier and both these facts are consistent with a seizure.

I now come to why I believe that Walter Villa was an honourable man and I accept what he said about the amount of oil that was left in his ailing Benelli at the end of the 350 race. Over the decades since this tragic accident he has taken the blame for this crash and been the fall guy. Confronted with the evidence of The Board of Inquiry that Pasolini’s bike had seized, Walter had a wonderful opportunity to clear his name but in deference to Pasolini he declined to take it as he thought this would slur his fellow rider. He was prepared to show solidarity with another rider even though they had not done so with him.

I understand that the article in Tuttomoto appeared when the son of one the persons who worked with the Chairman of the Board of Inquiry, Mr Colombo, found it and leaked it to the press. Mr Colombo was not best pleased and to me this suggests that there was a deliberate cover-up to protect the vested interests of the motorcycle establishment and Harley Davidson in particular. Why else would the conclusions have been kept under raps? They knew that if it was the oil that had brought the riders down then the organizers should have been held responsible because they had allowed Villa to continue and had not taken any action to clean up the track. They were in a dilemma because if they disclosed the seizure of Pasolini’s Harley Davidson to absolve the organizers, they would land the Italian bike manufacturer in the proverbial. In the end they did not need to come clean because the world thought that it was the oil and that Walter Villa was the person primarily responsible for this. The riders were used to being taken for a ride by the authorities but I am sure they are did not think it would have been such a long one this time.

On the 20th May 2003, the 30th anniversary of the accident, Soili and her family met with Renzo Pasolini's family and together they visited Monza and laid wreaths just after 3pm at the time and at the scene where the accident occurred. Soili blamed Walter Villa for the crash and ever since she has been unable to forgive him. I sincerely hope that she can now put this tragedy behind her and accept that he was not responsible for the accident.

I only purchased Klaas Tjassens’ book on Jarno Saarinen early in 2003 and was fascinated by it. After reading the account of the tragedy at Monza on the 20th May 1973 I could not get it out of my mind. It struck me that there had been very little analysis of the evidence. I was reluctant to take it on because, let’s face it, who am I to try and interpret something that happened over 30 years ago. I know I am laying myself open to criticism for having the audacity to try and change the verdict of history and for opening old but still very sore wounds but that is the price of the truth and I am happy to nail my colours to the mast and take any flack that comes my way. If anyone has additional evidence to support or contradict my conclusions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Roger Gowenlock. [email protected]

Copyright R J Gowenlock 2003.