Rally legends and former drivers are reminiscent of the legendary Zoo Races. The Helsinki Motor Club, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, was responsible for the competition’s motorcycle classes, which also have a common history with Finnish rally legends.
The Zoo Ride, most often held on Mother’s Day, once attracted top drivers from all over the world and to the track at its best, with more than 82,000 spectators paying for the track. Between 1932 and 1963, Eltsu competed a total of 25 times. Eltsu is also closely associated with Finnish rally legends Simo Lampinen and Rauno to Aaltonenbut somewhat surprisingly specifically for the motorcycle categories of competition.
– At the time, my father was already on the boat trip where the decision to organize the Zoo was made. Eltsu was certainly always the most important race for my father. He also competed a lot in Sweden and even in Assen and the Isle of Man, Simo Lampinen says.
His father, a ski maker Raine Lampinen was the top driver of his time, winning the motorcycle class three times in the Zoo, in 1934, -39 and -50.
– At that time, Eltsu was a bit like a mileage we went to every year. I remember that great feeling as we drove in from the gate into the depot to the Zoo sports field. Admittedly, once I got there with my clothes torn and in my blood. I was about ten years old at the time. The father had already gone to the competition site and my mother and I later followed him, Simo Lampinen recalls.
– We drove from Kerkko towards Helsinki and picked up the rubbish from the floor of the car to throw it away. However, at the same time, I accidentally grabbed the door handle and the door opened because it had hijacked doors. The speed was maybe 70 km / h, but I got so stuck on the door handle that I didn’t get under the tire or fall off the ride. However, the clothes tore and every place was ruvela. In Eltsu’s first aid tent, I was then patched and taped in shape.
Simo Lampinen followed his father’s competition with enthusiasm and he was also to become a motorcyclist. However, becoming ill with polio at the age of 13 watered down the plans.
– I followed Eltsu on Mother’s Day that spring as a polio patient from the window of Aurora Hospital. From there you could see directly on the hill of Moukaripörssi.
Simo fought the winner through his severe illness, but the condition of his legs no longer allowed him to start racing on a motorcycle. However, that was the beginning of a successful career at the wheel of a car. The 1962 Eltsu start line was meant to see both father and son.
Raine Lampinen would drive once more in the motorcycle class and Simo would compete in the formula junior class. However, another doctor at the race considered the driver with the polio a safety risk and prevented Simon from competing with the chalk lines. The decision provoked a heated debate, as he had already succeeded in the rally – and won the Jyväskylä Suurajot the youngest driver in history the following year.
The zoo was also a familiar event for another rally legend, To Rauno Aaltonen. His father, August Aaltonen, who was the godfather of Simo Lampinen, raced a motorcycle in Eltsu in the 1930s, and a couple of decades later Rauno also rode a motorcycle and later a car.
– Eltsu was a huge event. When we went by car from Turku to Helsinki and back, there was an uninterrupted line of cars all the way. It was because of Eltsu. At the moment, there is no event in Finland that is nowhere near the same as Eltsu, be it music or sports, Rauno Aaltonen says.
– There was quite a difference in altitude on the Eltsu track, which had to be taken into account in the driving lines. It was a pretty hard track to learn. For the first time I drove there on a 125cc MV Agusta. That bike wasn’t quite like the fastest. After moving to Ducat, the equipment was in order. However, I can’t remember the kind of results I had in Eltsu.
Versatile experts
Aaltonen was a tough factor in the back of the motorcycle as well, one example being the victory in the international TT race in Hedemora, Sweden, in 1957. The race featured the top card of the drivers of that time.
In the golden age of zoo rides, it was quite common for motorcyclists to compete in different sports. The versatile species repertoire also took five times to win the Päijänne tour Pertti Kärhän In the 50s to Eltsu’s starting line.
– I got a Honda borrowed from the Netherlands, which was a really tense game. In the exercises, however, the rear wheel stalled on the hill of Moukaripörssi. The crash was quite severe and I only realized it at Töölö Hospital. the cause of my downfall later became clear. As the bike had been brought to Finland by ship, the oils had been drained from its gearbox. However, no one had remembered to put them back, so it cut, Kärhä recalls.
Suddenly the Swedish “can slave”
Speedway driver Valle Seliverstov was recruited in the late 1950s to act as an interpreter for a pair of Swedish sidecar drivers during Eltsu’s race weekend. However, Pesti turned into an adventure when a Swedish sidecar passenger, a can slave, fell off a ride during an exercise and was injured.
– He did not get permission from the doctor in the hospital to take part in the competition and the Swedes had an emergency to find a new can of slaves in such a short time. Then they began to look at me and exclaim: You could be right!
– I couldn’t be scared at the time, so I agreed. We then practiced in that depot a little bit about how to hang in a sidecar, and I’m not really a jumper, 87-year-old Seliverstov laughs.
– They lived in the Hotel Tower and we probably had a little party there in advance. We then practiced in a hotel room on the edge of the bed how a can slave works. At three o’clock at night, a porter came to say that now the runs would end because the neighbors would like to sleep.
– Then just to the line. After all, we were in the race last, but luckily the gearbox of the bike cut after five laps. I wouldn’t have managed to hang on the ride until the finish.