The 50th anniversary of the fatal accident for Renzo and Jarno in the memory of the families of the two motorcycle champions. Sabrina Pasolini: “Dad present and wild: I was 7 years old but I understood immediately”. Soili Karme Saarinen: “I saw the smoke at Curvone and understood…”
No one needed to wait even a few hours to realize what really happened that day. Let alone this half century that has flown by. The following day, La Gazzetta wrote on the front page: “An era of motorcycling has come to an end at the Curvone di Monza”. In those same hours of 20 May 1973, exactly fifty years ago, Milan arrived in the last round of the championship at Bentegodi in the lead with a point over Juve. And he took 5, finished 5-3, while the bianconeri won 2-1 at the Olimpico against Roma. “Fatal Verona”, they still say today, but it is a definition developed later. An a posteriori reconstruction, as almost always. Not at Monza, at the GP of Nations and all over the world it was immediately clear that motorcycle racing would never be the same again. Not only because the idea of two very good riders dying on the track was not bearable, not even then, in years in which the term “fatal” in motorcycling had a much more tragic meaning than in football. But also, above all, the feeling of caesura was evident for who those two were: Renzo Pasolini and Jarno Saarinen, two adored heroes. In different ways they represented the new that flared, elbowed, bent in curves like never before. They were a motorcycling that promised smiles, acrobatics, entertainment. And that he kept little more than nothing, because that day ended all. Too soon, yet not enough to dilute the regret. Nor the memory.