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Mar. 1st, 2013 05:18 pm20th Feb 09, 14:20 #26
driveace
Join Date
Dec 2007
Posts
1,025
Henri Toivonen
I had the pleasure of working with Henri in the 79 Total Escort ,for the whole season.What a lot of people DONT KNOW is that Henri did not want to go into rallying at all.He was brought up in go cart racing with Keke Rosberg,and they were both sponsered by Pauli Toivonen,Henri,s father.When Keke went into racing,Henri wanted to do that too.BUT at that time there were lots of fatal accidents in F1 and Pauli told Henri,that when he got to 60 he wanted to still have two sons,SO he wanted Henri to go to rallying which Pauli thought was safer at that time.When Henri won the RAC in 1980 it was Hannu that he was challenging,for the lead .Pauli had helped Hannu immensly in Hannu,s early years in rallying,so Hannu was VERY happy that Henri won that year(1980) as a pay back to Pauli for all his help.What a lot dont know either is that Hannu used to go out with Henri to teach him driving "blind roads" in Finland,again as thanks to Pauli.When I last saw Pauli at Silverstone years later when he was there with Harri ,who at that time was doing some testing of an Aston Martin, Pauli looked like a broken man, which was so very sad.
http://www.motorsportforums.com/wrc/130742-henri-toivonen-2.html#post592231
driveace
Join Date
Dec 2007
Posts
1,025
Henri Toivonen
I had the pleasure of working with Henri in the 79 Total Escort ,for the whole season.What a lot of people DONT KNOW is that Henri did not want to go into rallying at all.He was brought up in go cart racing with Keke Rosberg,and they were both sponsered by Pauli Toivonen,Henri,s father.When Keke went into racing,Henri wanted to do that too.BUT at that time there were lots of fatal accidents in F1 and Pauli told Henri,that when he got to 60 he wanted to still have two sons,SO he wanted Henri to go to rallying which Pauli thought was safer at that time.When Henri won the RAC in 1980 it was Hannu that he was challenging,for the lead .Pauli had helped Hannu immensly in Hannu,s early years in rallying,so Hannu was VERY happy that Henri won that year(1980) as a pay back to Pauli for all his help.What a lot dont know either is that Hannu used to go out with Henri to teach him driving "blind roads" in Finland,again as thanks to Pauli.When I last saw Pauli at Silverstone years later when he was there with Harri ,who at that time was doing some testing of an Aston Martin, Pauli looked like a broken man, which was so very sad.
http://www.motorsportforums.com/wrc/130742-henri-toivonen-2.html#post592231
