T
eam Yamaha's Gary Fisher
looked on from his pit area
at the Santa Clara County Fair-
grounds. It was May 20, 1973,
and the second heat race of
the San Jose Half-Mile had just
ended. At the checkered flag,
Lloyd Houchins, a 25-year-old
dirt track racer from Castro Val-
ley, California, collided with fel-
low racer Pat McCaul and both
riders went down hard. McCaul
was uninjured and walked away,
but Houchins, thrown from his
Harley-Davidson into a guard rail
along the fairgrounds track, isn't
moving. Fisher and his fellow
racers are waiting for informa
-
tion, painfully aware of the fact
that at times like this, no news
almost always means bad news.
Minutes before receiving
the word that Lloyd Houchins'
injuries were indeed fatal, that
he had died almost immediately
after hitting (and snapping in
two) a 4x4 wooden post, Team
Yamaha manager Pete Schick
brought Fisher more grim news:
there had been a gruesome
crash at the Gran Premio Delle
Nazioni (Nations Grand Prix) in
Monza, Italy, one that had taken
out multiple riders. Jarno Saarin
-
en, whom Fisher had just battled
(and nearly defeated) just weeks
earlier at the Daytona 200, was
dead, as was Harley-Davidson's
Renzo Pasolini.
A likable privateer dirt
tracker (see sidebar), a World
Champion and an immensely
popular Italian racer, one whose
funeral procession would clog
the streets of Rimini, Italy, with
20,000 devoted followers, were
now gone. May 20, 1973. Motor-
cycling's Black Sunday—on two
continents.
Finland's Jarno Saarinen was
the 27-year-old reigning World
Champion, a former ice racer
who was likely on his way to two
more titles (250cc and 500cc)
that season. He had been victo-
rious at both Imola and Daytona,
where he had ridden a calculat-
ed race and defeated a talented
field of riders on machines twice
the size of his Yamaha 350.
His life story is well known and
can be found here in a previous
Cycle News Archives.
At a grizzled 34 years of age,
the cigarette-smoking Pasolini
should have been on the parade
lap of his 10-year racing career.
Instead, just a few months
earlier in the fall of 1972, he had
CNIIARCHIVES
P132
BY KENT TAYLOR
Renzo "Paso" Pasolini
ITALY'S
ONE AND ONLY:
RENZO "PASO"
PASOLINI
