Year revered Rauno Aaltonen began love affair with Safari Rally
Finland’s Rauno Aaltonen, navigated by Lofty Drews arrive back in Nairobi during the 1982 Safari Rally.
What you need to know:
- Aaltonen became part of the Safari Rally's heritage, and a brand name amongst foreign drivers in each edition since 1962 with the exception of races he stayed out until his last Safari outing in 1987.
Was Rauno Aaltonen cursed by a medicine man for running over his gourd of witchcraft or was he simply jinxed?
While Tommy Fjastad and Bernard Schmider won the 1962 Safari Rally in a Volkswagen Beetle after a neck-and-neck chase with Nick Norwiki, driving a Peugeot 404, this edition marked the beginning of a undying love tale between Aaltonen, the Finnish Rally Professor from Turku, Finland, and Safari Rally that lasted a quarter century.
Aaltonen became part of the Safari Rally's heritage, and a brand name amongst foreign drivers in each edition since 1962 with the exception of races he stayed out until his last Safari outing in 1987.
His Safari Rally exploits became such an obsession that those who were born then knew no other overseas hero other than Aaltonen whom they considered one of their own like Joginder Singh, Vic Preston Junior, Shekhar Mehta, Rob Collinge and Mike Kirkland.
Aaltonen can be counted as the most unlucky driver in Safari Rally’s 70 years history. He always led the Safari in each and every year he competed in only for something to happpen and deny him victory.
He finished a record second position four times in 1977, 1980, 1981,1984 and third in 1978. His lowest finish was ninth in 1987 driving an Opel Kadett in 1987.
Aaltonen was a rally professor who taught many people how to handle rally cars.
But nobody could explain his implosion in a face-off with team mate Shekhar Mehta during the 1981 Safari Rally when he ignored team orders to slow down.
A race section was cancelled which Aaaltonen cleared after being ruled impassable. He refused to follow team orders to slow down in the next section because Mehta was in the lead and Nissan didn’t want to risk a possible victory.
Aaltonen was declared the winner after the disputed section was declared legal. But Mehta appealed and the decision was overturned. Aaltonen took his case to the FIA which ruled in Mehta's favour.
Nissan severed its 11 years relationship with the Finn who moved to Opel and gave them a second place finish in 1984 and fourth the following year.
Minus any plausible explanation, some even whispered that Aaltonen may have run over a witch doctor's gourd filled with black power medicine in the ukambani sections and was cursed to forever never win the Safari Rally.
Even the authors of the book, Safari Rally from which some of the historical records this series of articles are borrowed from, set aside a chapter on Aaltonen, now 85.
“In fact the Finnish rally professor from Turku had everything it took to be successful in Africa; ability, humbleness, routine, technical knowledge, endurance, technical cleverness. Still, the Safari turned him down time and time again; maybe it was a ‘thahu’, (a curse in Kikuyu language) from a ‘Mundu Mugo’ (medicine man),” the book reads.
Aaltonen's 1962 Safari Rally debut was impressive. He was already in the lead in a bulky Mercedes Benz navigated by Peter Goode but a navigational era at Nakuru caused him a 50 minutes penalty and he never recovered.
