Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Aro left Yamaha to join the eH Racing Husqvarna team and promptly gave the Italian company yet another World off-road title. Championship, again making six or seven races each year, with only the support from my father's shop. After '97, there were some small chances of getting support from teams in Europe, but I still needed to bring money, so I stayed in Finland for '98." With his ambitions of MX GP glory on hold, Aro spent more and more time riding with WEC regular Jani Laaksonen. Convinced that Aro would make a world-class enduro rider, Jani's continued pressure got Aro thinking, and in '98 he rode in both the Finnish motocross and enduro championships. "My speed was good," explains Aro, thinking back to his first season of enduros. "But I was still just a motocross rider racing in enduros, because I was crashing all the time." The following season turned out to be an extremely important year for the fun-loving Finn. Having joined the army, and with his girlfriend having given birth to their first child, he took his first tentative steps onto the World Enduro stage before unexpectedly being drafted into the Finnish ISDE squad at the 11 th hour. "I had to make some big decisions in '99," says Aro. "With my son being born, I wanted to stay at home, which is why I rode the Finnish motocross and enduro championships. There was one weekend where there was both a motocross and enduro championship race - I raced in the enduro: With the Finnish Enduro title his, having at one point also led the National Motocross Championship, what had started out as an "only for fun" approach to his enduro racing was becoming increasingly serious. Finding time to compete in the last three rounds of the '99 WEC Series, Aro's call-up for the Finnish ISDE Trophy team was to be the beginning of a new chapter in his motorcycle-racing career. "The '99 ISDE in Portugal was a really good race for me," recalls Aro. "I didn't have much time to think about what result I might make - I just knew I had to finish the race. I was still crashing about 10 times a day in the special tests, but I won the 125cc class and helped the Finnish Trophy team win the event." With the enduro world now aware of his talents, Aro penned a contract with the Yamaha Italy-supported UFO Corse team for 2000 - a season that turned out to be one to forget. "I was still learning and practicing a lot, possibly too much, and I was trying to win a little bit too fast," Aro admits. "I didn't have the patience to wait and get more experience; I just wanted to go to the first race and win." Fast but inconsistent: A crash midway through a cross-country test at the second round of the series in France resulted in a broken arm and the end of his World-Championship ambitions. He returned for only the final round of the season; Aro's first full WEC season had been a disaster. Aro was still able to compete in the remaining rounds of the Italian Enduro Championship, and with solid results giving an indication of the type he might one day produce at World-Championship level, he impressed CH Racing boss Fabrizio Azzalin and agreed to race for Husqvarna the following season. "The Yamaha team was changing, and I was offered a very good contract from Husqvarna - it was as simple as that," explains Aro. "I knew Petteri Silvan really well, as well as the other riders and the mechanics, so it was quite safe for me to change." Struggling initially to feel at home on his new machine, Aro's results at the opening round of the '01 series were again disappointing. He was unsure what to change in order to improve the performance of his Husky, yet as the season progressed, so too did his results - so much so, in fact, that he won the final three days of the series and proved himself to be a champion in the making. "Yeah, I was really fast at the end of the year," Aro admitted, "but I didn't have a great feeling with the bike at the early races. I was trying too hard and didn't know the bike very well." For 2002, with seemingly the pick of the WEC contracts on offer, Aro re-signed with the CH Racing Husqvama squad - a move many saw as a mistake. With the Italian manufacturer's future unclear due to ongoing financial difficulties, rumors had him headed to the relative safety of KTM. "I renewed my contract with Husqvarna simply because the CH Racing team is so good," he explains. "I am very good friends with Tulio [Aro's mechanic and mentor at Husqvarna, someone that many feel is single-handedly responsible for turning Aro's career around] and have a strong connection with the whole team. I also found a good setup with the bike last year, which I knew we could improve." With the problems at Husqvarna continuing, preparation for the 2002 season started late. Arriving in Italy just two weeks before the first Italian championship round, a month before the WEC opener, Aro knew he already had a bike on which he could win and refused to let the company's imminent take-over worry him. With only a new exhaust system to test, the bike that had proved itself during the second half of '01 would again have to prove good enough in '02. Aro was confident that '02 was to be "his year." The conditions at the season opener in Spain were far from what anyone expected. With mud and ruts deciding the class winners when dust and hard-pack was what all were expecting, Aro found himself finishing second twice, behind his on-form class rival David Knight. "It didn't bother me that I didn't win in Spain, admits Aro. "It would have been nice to start the season with a win, but I knew that David would be fast, and I don't really like the mud, so second was okay: Genuinely not bothered about having been beaten at round one of the series, Aro signaled his intent to win the title at round two in Portugal with a c1asstopping ride on both days. Faltering briefly on day one of the third round of the series in Greece before bouncing back to top day two, Aro's goal of claiming his first-ever World title was now looking increasingly likely. And with another maximum 50-point haul from round three in France, a 59-point lead after the first four rounds of the championship meant that no one looked likely to stop him. Aro continued to place his CH Racing Husqvama at the top of the quarter-liter class; another winning performance at the team's home race in Italy meant that the 250cc title could be his at the series' penultimate round in Finland. Unsurprisingly, Aro did exactly what all were expecting him to do - topped the class comfortably. By claiming his fourth "double top" of the season, the title was his. "It was great to win in Italy for the team, and then to finally win the title at my home race in Finland was also great," he says. "When it happened, it didn't feel like such a big deal because I'd been winning for many races. I was a little bit disappointed because it was so easy." So what was it that changed Samuli Aro from a hard-charging motocross rider into a World Enduro Champion seemingly overnight? "I don't know," he confesses. "At the end of last year I learned a lot. I felt a lot more confident after the races in Finland and Sweden, after the ISDE in France and because of the Italian championship races as well. I don't know what happened this year; I guess I just learned how to ride enduros." eN With his World-Championship commitments over, and with only a few rounds of the Italian Enduro Championship filling the gap between the end of the WEC series and the ISDE, Aro decided that a break from enduros would do him good, and he entered the Czech motocross GP. Returning to a series he'd once had serious ambitions of contesting on a fuJltime basis, his three-day refresher course in top-level motocross wasn't the experience he'd been expecting. "The motocross World Championship is like a holiday compared to enduro races," he explains with a smile. "I was at the Czech GP for three days, and it felt like I didn't do anything. At enduros, you have to walk special test, change tires, race for eight hours on Saturday and then six on Sunday; you always have something to do. With two half-hour practices on Saturday, one qualifying race, one warm-up and only one race, the GP felt like a holiday for an enduro rider. Of course, if you want a good result, you have to be very fast, but I felt like I should have been doing something all the time." cue I ... n e _ os • JANUARY 15. 2003 33

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