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VOLUME 58 ISSUE 9 MARCH 2, 2021 P103 then Saarinen came over," Car- ruthers says. "I don't know how it happened, who instigated it, whether Japan wanted him to come or America wanted him to come. I was just told that he was coming, and could we provide him a bike? Everybody had a spare bike, so that wasn't a prob- lem. Fortunately, he brought over his own mechanic, which helped, because I was a little bit under- staffed, to be honest." So much so that Carruthers almost backed out of the race himself because he was running out of time. "I was just so busy running the race team that I had barely prac- ticed," Carruthers remembers. "I was working until late every night with the mechanics because I used to work on all the engines and everything. By race day I was completely buggered, to be honest with you. That morning I helped them set up the fuel rig, so I never did go out for the Sunday morning practice session, and then one of my guys had trouble with a fuel cell or something. I just said to Jan, my wife, 'I don't even feel like riding. I'll just take what- ever off my bike and put it on his.' But she talked me into riding. She said, 'Just go out there and ride around. If you feel like you can do it, go on, and if not just pull in.' So that's what I did." It looked as though the Ya- maha boys might all be out for a Sunday ride-along, as the big Kawasakis of Duhamel, Art Baumann and Nixon left the field behind quickly. But time was not kind to them. Duhamel and Bau- mann both crashed on lap nine, moving Nixon into the lead. Nixon only lasted another 10 laps before he was out with engine trouble. Then Suzuki's Geoff Perry of New Zealand led for a brief time before ignition woes ended his chances. Fisher was the first Yamaha atop the leaderboard, but then he pitted for gas and lost the lead. A blown crank left him parked by lap 30. Suzuki's Ron Grant held the lead after that, but like teammate Perry, his ignition let go, dropping him out of the hunt. The talented Saarinen quietly made his way into the lead on lap 32 and went on to run up front for the rest of the time, taking the win. Carruthers slipped into second place for what would be his best Daytona 200 finish. For the second year in a row, Yama- has ruled the podium, as Mel Dinesen-backed Jim Evans came home third. "I wasn't really aware of what was going on in front of me," Car- ruthers says. "I wasn't totally with it, to be honest with you. But then I looked up at the leaderboard, and I was up to second, and by the time I realized that, Jarno was too far gone. He was good. I'd raced against him in Europe. I think that he probably would have been 500cc World Champion that year." So, it would seem. After win- ning Daytona and also the presti- gious Imola 200 in Italy, Saarinen then defeated reigning 500cc World Champion Giacomo Agos- tini in the 500cc French Grand Prix and collected another 500cc win in Germany. He was also well on the way to defending his 250cc title, having posted three wins prior to the Monza, Italy, round on May 20, 1973. But that was when time caught up with Jarno Saarinen. On the first lap of the Monza race, Italian superstar Renzo Pasolini slipped in oil that had been left by a rider from the 350cc event held just prior. Saarinen could not avoid him. The ensuing pileup involved over a dozen riders, and Pasolini and Saarinen were both killed in one of the most tragic crashes in GP history. Saarinen was gone, but it could be argued that he certainly made the most of his time while he was here. CN This Archives edition is reprinted from issue #14, April 14, 2004. CN has hundreds of past Archives editions in our files, too many des- tined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones com- ing down the road. -Editor Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives UNTIMELINESS:

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