Gianni Rolando The Hunter
When Gianni Rolando stepped into motorcycle racing, he knew nothing about it.
Arider takes up motorcycle racing knowing nothing about it – we’ve all heard that before – but in this case, it’s embarrassingly true. How about this for a moment of clarity that a professional racer would definitely rather forget? The man who transported Gianni’s first race bike to the Italian championship meeting had a truck that pulled a trailer with all sides made of glass (because it was a sort of mobile showroom for sofas that for the occasion became an improvised racebike transporter to carry motorcycles) – Rolando thought that all teams in the world championship used transparent vans. See? We told you it was embarrassing... But on with the racing proper. The bike arriving in such an obvious manner was a 500 Suzuki, a two-stroke twin that came directly from Saiad, the Italian importer for the Japanese manufacturer.
In 1975 the first round of the Italian
championship was held in Modena, where Gianni jumped on the bike and asked the owner of the truck: “To put it into first gear should I push down or pull up the gear lever?”
Despite the lack of knowledge and plunging into a big racing world, Rolando had ‘it’. He was candid, innocent, damned fast.
Today, more than 40 years later, he believes that he did indeed have ‘it’ with absolutely no doubt – even if he never really transformed his speed in to results or massive championship points.
He had a place in the top 20 in the 1978 standings, some fair rides here and there, but nothing that could be compared to his close friends, especially compatriots Marco Lucchinelli (winner of the 500 crown in 1981) and Barry Sheene (at the top in 1976/77).
But when it came to life on the sidelines – when the superstar-riddled gana wanted to party, hang out with girls and do crazy things, Gianni was always in the first row.
Rolando, now 65 years old, focuses in on the track stuff first: “But let’s start from racing. I debuted directly in the 500 class, which was an uncommon thing.
“When I started with the national championship I had only a few laps of experience. I had jumped on a 500 Kawasaki triple for fun at Misano some months before and was faster than the guy who used to ride it regularly.
“So people from his crew started to tell me that I had to give it a try seriously. That’s what I did after asking my dad for the money to pay for the Kawasaki, because I had ended the day crashing, almost destroying it. In that moment I switched from being a musician who played guitar nationally, to a racer.”
That first year was what you’d call stop/ start since he didn’t start in all the races on the calendar. The second year he finished third in the standings and that gave him access to the world championship.
Based on that natural talent for speed, finding a team was no problem: “In those years, at least for me, things were just happening. It wasn’t hard to find a ride, sponsors or whatever was needed in order to compete in the top class.
“I had a proposal from the Nava Olio Fiat team run by former racer Roberto Gallina, and that was it. I was in with a good bike, the Suzuki RG, and I was ready to fight.”
It’s not unreasonable that, at the time, expectations where high even though Gianni had to deal with many things: competitive opponents, unseen tracks and no idea of what it meant to set up a bike: “That’s a constant of my career, while others were dealing with the fine-tuning of the front fork, rear suspensions, weight distribution, wheelbase and so on I just jumped on the motorcycle and rode as fast as I could – which has consequences not only on the lap time, but on the physical efforts you have to make to finish a 55-minute race with those beasts.
“This approach changed slightly during my last years of racing, when I was with Cagiva. You shouldn’t think that changes and experiments were taken with a scientific mind-set. If we tested 16in wheels, for example, there was no kind of other modification on the bike. I had no idea of what else had to be changed in order to make the different wheels work.
“My previous crews just sent me out and told me to ride fast, nothing more.”
The inexperience had consequences also in some of those little details that racers, their teams and mechanics just can’t underestimate – periphary things that are still really important – like the size of his leather suit.
“When the brand that provided my leathers asked me how I wanted them, I asked for a suit that was tight around my forearms because I didn’t like the leathers flapping around on my arms at high speed. It was a huge mistake because when you ride your muscle expands and if there’s no space you suffer a lot. That’s exactly what happened to me.”
In 1977 one of his best results was a 13th place in Assen, while the following season he gathered his first championship points and finished in sixth place in Silverstone behind people like Kenny Roberts, Sheene and Tuepo Lansovuori, and ahead of Johnny Cecotto. In front of him also finished Marco Lucchinelli, his close friend: “It happened that he had
“I was in with a good bike, the Suzuki RG, and I was ready to fight.”
to leave his parents’ house and didn’t know where to go, so since I still lived with my mom and dad, who had a huge and beautiful house, I told him he could stay with us in Faenza, close to the Imola racetrack.
“We used to pick up girls and make them come in our rooms from the back windows of the house, but to do so they had to walk through a wide garden and often mud stuck under their shoes. When they climbed the wall to get in, they left prints of the shoes on the external wall, and that didn’t make my father happy at all. He said that it was cheaper to rent an apartment for us than to keep paying the painter!”
At that time Gianni was mid-early twenties, a racer in the top class of the world championship, and a good looking guy. He was living a dream and the boy made the most of his position: “I had many relationships with TV and music stars that in Italy were super popular. At one point I was approached by Marlboro, wanting to sponsor me. They had about six or seven riders with them and most were world champions, but they wanted somebody who was well known also outside the circle of racing fans.
“When we went to the discos people recognised me because of my affairs. They saw me in gossip magazines, that kind of stuff. My face was well known and that’s why the tobacco brand picked me. They wanted the fast guys, but also the ones people could recognize easily.”
One of his most famous colleagues was Sheene, who always looked for a good laugh or some unpredictable thing to do: “I remember that during one Assen weekend we went hunting for rabbits with our cars, he had a RollsRoyce and I had a Mercedes. We chased them in a big field trying to hit them. It was not easy at all, because if you ran over them with the wheels then you couldn’t cook and eat them any more. It was a very particular and original kind of hunting.”
“My face was well known and that’s why the tobacco brand picked me. They wanted the fast guys, but also the ones people could recognize easily”
Another time they went after trout: “It was in Finland. We cut some wire mesh from the circuit fences and went fishing with it, damn that fish was good.”
Racing life was dangerous and in Gianni’s opinion that’s one of the reasons why riders were so loud and outwardly crazy: “At the end of a race you were happy because you had enjoyed yourself and you were still alive.”
The Italian is able to clearly spot when that kind of approach started to change and indicates the arrival on the world scene of American wunderkind Freddie Spencer as the main reason responsible for that evolution: “You see, we used to get to the pits, smoke a cigarette, put our leathers on somewhere while chatting with somebody, jump on the bike and ride.
“In terms of the amount of time we spent with the helmet on, the less possible the better. Sometimes we took it off right after the chequered flag. Freddie was different though. When he got out of his camper he was completely dressed in his racing apparel, helmet on, the visor down.
“I was impressed because he didn’t even lift it on the starting grid, maybe just a little bit. We could never see his face. He was serious, damned serious.”
And he was successful, becoming the last rider to rank first in two different categories in the same year. It happened in 1985, in both the 250 and 500 classes. At that point Gianni had already retired, and not because he was tired of racing or found himself slower than before: “My wife and I split and she left me with our five-year-old kid. Nobody could help me with him, so I had to give up racing in order to take care of him.”
In Rolando's house he still has the only tool he used in order to train his body – a tube with the diameter of a handlebar, with weights attached to it by a chain: “I used to roll it, up and down, so the motion improved my forearms and my fingers simulated the movement with the front brake and clutch levers. For the rest, our training was riding as much as we could.
“We could test with no limitation and that was good but at the same time super expensive.
We did it, we had no alternatives.”
Gianni admits that quitting was hard.
“Yes, it was over for me and I had to accept it. Luckily had a way to distract myself: sex.”