As we mourn the tragic events of May 1973 at Monza, now 50 years ago, which cost both his life and that of his great rival Jarno Saarinen, it’s sadly evident that Italian legend Renzo Pasolini is remembered as much for the way in which he lost his life, as what he achieved during it.
Because for the best part of a decade the stocky, bespectacled, fun-loving rider from Rimini, whose father Massimo was himself an early-1950s world record-breaking star of the street circuits carved through the bomb sites of the war-ravaged country, was one half of Italy’s road-racing double act.
Paso was the underdog, a working-class lad duelling with Giacomo Agostini, the man with the movie star looks and the charisma which came from riding the two-wheeled Ferraris bearing the MV Agusta label to successive GP victories and World titles. Paso was the goofy-looking guy who used to carry ski goggles below his pudding-basin helmet to mask the thick-lensed glasses he wore, before becoming an early adopter of the open-face helmet which let him ditch the ski mask.
His decade-long battles with Ago began early on, when in 1962 in his debut season in road-racing after switching from motocross, Paso twice beat his rival’s works-supported 175cc Moto Morini in Italian championship races on his self-tuned Aermacchi. Despite a year out of racing doing military service – which Ago was conveniently able to avoid – he became successful enough on works-run 250/350 Aermacchi singles to be hired by Benelli in 1965 to race its four-cylinder GP bike.
For the next three seasons Paso and the cash-strapped Pesaro factory played a key supporting role to the titanic battles between Ago on his MV and the Hondamounted Mike Hailwood, while reaping successive Italian 250cc titles, and even in 1968 defeating Ago and MV for the 350cc crown.
But seemingly his own best chance of a world title came and went in 1969, when a mid-season injury meant Pasolini had to watch his Aussie team-mate Kel Carruthers win the 250cc crown in the four-cylinder Benelli’s final season in the sun, before being outlawed with the class restricted to a maximum of two cylinders for 1970. This effectively led to grids stacked with Yamaha two-strokes and the occasional MZ, so Benelli focused instead on the 350cc class, jettisoning its cubed-up 494cc version of the four to end its participation in the 500cc category. Despite finishing 3rd behind teammate Carruthers in the 1970 350cc World Championship with three 2nds and one 3rd place, Paso became disillusioned – so when the chance came to rejoin Aermacchi for 1971 to compete in the 250/350cc classes on the Varese factory’s all-new two-stroke twins, he took it.
Trademark
Throughout the 1960s the American-owned company had developed its trademark horizontal cylinder Ala d'Oro 250/350cc OHV four-stroke singles to be the ultimate privateer tools, much lighter and
