Photo by Hans Firbas
Seppo Harjanne was the taciturn, but supremely efficient Finn who co-drove Timo Salonen through all his successes with the Peugeot 205 T16 including the world rally championship title in 1985.
Harjanne joined Salonen for the first time in the 1974 1000 Lakes Rally before embarking in a long term partnership that would see them competing with Datsun, Nissan, Peugeot and finally Mazda until 1988.
He then joined Tommi Makinen in the Mitsubishi team to help him win two of his four world rally titles, one in 1996 and the other in 1997.
Other drivers who had the privilege of listening to his pacenotes were Erkki Pitkanen, Matti Johansson, Hannu Mikkola, Tomi Palmqvist, Sebastian Lindholm and Juha Kankkunen.
Kankunnen and Harjanne joined forces again in 2007 to contest the Incas Rally in Peru for the first time in their career. There I had the chance to meet Harjanne and ask him about some of his best years in rallying.
What have you been doing since you left the World Rally Championship?
Well, for a couple of years I was wandering around. In 2000 I joined Rally Finland and I’ve been working as a Deputy Clerk of the Course since then.
Have you still been competing in any rallies?
Only a few, every now and then we have an old boys trophy rally. We did the Arctic Rally with Keke Rosberg and Mercedes competition boss Norberg Haug. It was just for fun but it was a great event. Apart from that, I’ve been co-driving only for Juha (Kankkunen) once or twice a year.
What years or rallies have you enjoyed the most in the WRC?
It’s difficult to say. It was different times, different drivers, and different cars. I had great moments with Timo (Salonen) and Tommi (Makinen). When you’re winning you feel satisfied because you know you’ve done your job right.
How did your interest in rallying begin?
It’s a long story. They used to run the first round of Finnish Championship in the town where I was living and in the premises where my father worked, so that is how I started to get interested in the sport. Later on I saw an advert for a general secretary position at the Sports Car Club Association in Finland and I took the job in 1972 or 1973.
How did you join Timo Salonen in the championship?
In 1974 I did my first rally with Timo although we knew each other for quite some time already.
There was the first oil crisis in 1973 and they cancelled all the rallies. But, as a general secretary of the Club I knew there was one rally that was going to happen in 1974. I told Timo about it and we competed together there. Then we competed for a couple of years together as a hobby.
We have not heard much about Timo since he left the championship. What is he doing nowadays?
He has remarried and he runs his own car dealership which he owned before he started rallying. When he became a professional driver he stepped aside and let his younger brother run the business. I keep in touch with him every now and then but not every day.
What do you think about the WRC nowadays?
I think it’s good but I find that now it’s like a 9am to 6pm job. You have exact hours; you spend a week at the rally and then you go home. We used to be free youngsters who lived our lives in motorsport. We used to spend one month here, two or three weeks there and so on. It was a different kind of atmosphere. We were a big family going from one place to another. Everybody knew each other. We had a lot of fun and did a lot of things together.
Are you going to compete in any more rallies in the future?
I’m going to do a small local rally with Juha called Rally Prealpi Trevigiane in Italy. It is organised by Motoring Club Sernaglia, which is run by Gabriele Favero. We did the event last year. It’s a one-day event with only one stage. We run it four times and the best three count. It’s an easy rally but it’s fun!
After the interview, I could only think how great it would have been to go to the world rally championship events during those years. There are so many rally legends I wish I could have seen drive and been able to talk to. But, meeting Seppo and Juha after all their accomplishments, made me feel lucky because I got to listen to all their stories.
You can find this interview in the current issue of RallyWorld Magazine www.rallyworldmagazine.com
