Flashback: Rally car race against Juha Salminen

Some of you readers might have wondered what was the result of the Rally car race I had against Juha Salminen earlier this summer. I had to hold back information about the race until the Vauhdin Maailma magazine published the story. Finnish readers who had seen the magazine already know what was it all about but now I can tell the rest of the world who was the fastest and why! The whole thing was organized by the Finnish motor sport magazine Vauhdin Maailma to make another kind of confrontation between me and Juha. To explain the story in few words is that in the past when Juha was winning world titles I was riding on different bikes that were more or less in progress and not so “ready to race” like Juha’s bikes. Now I am winning and Juha is riding bikes that are not “ready to race”. It’s like a long circle is closing and that we have kind of swapped the roles. To make us to challenge each other on BMW rally cars was a hilarious idea to me as I had never driven any rally car before! Juha instead had tested some times cars like this and he liked it so much that he actually had just bought a M3 rally car for himself! I didn’t know what to expect but I was confident. The fact is that I learned to drive a car before I learned to ride a motorbike and I used to have a Fiat 600 that I was driving on one farm and learning to slide it in winter when I was under 10 years old! It seemed like things that you learn as kid you never forget! My driving style was completely different to Juha’s. Juha’s style was clean and he seemed faster compared to my “all over the place” style. I was sideways so much it seemed impossible that I could be faster but... My first lap was way faster than Juha’s but on second lap I ruined completely one corner and the result of two laps combined times was this!

If you are wondering my early age to drive a car watch this video on Vauhdin Maaima magazine’s site! It shows famous Finnish rally driver Harri Rovanperä’s 8 years old son having some fun!