Mika Salo, Racing Driver
Photo Mika Salo Instagram
Like all his Formula 1 peers Mika Salo only knows one way to drive: flat out. Even when that’s taking a road trip across South Africa.
“We didn’t stop, we just went flat out.”
Mika Salo had a long career at the very pinnacle of the sport. He had stints at no fewer than seven Formula 1 teams between 1994 and 2002. The Finn deputised for Michael Schumacher at Ferrari when the German ace broke his leg on the opening lap of the 1999 British F1 GP and Salo was instrumental in helping the Scuderia win the constructor’s title that year, their first since 1983.
The racer turned TV presenter was recently in South Africa as a guest driver for Mercedes-Benz South Africa, driving a CLA 45S in the annual Simola Hillclimb . Our man Matai pulled ‘the other Mika’ aside for a quick chat…
“Oh man, I have so many unplanned trips, I don’t really know which one to tell you about. I am on one right now,” starts the Finn with a chuckle in his accented English.
“But since we are in South Africa I will tell you about a bike trip that I did here in South Africa many years ago. It was maybe twenty years ago or more, but it is still one of my most memorable trips ever.
“It was completely unplanned. I had these two friends, Finnish guys, who were living in Johannesburg at the time. I was still racing back then and l was living in London. They called me up and said ‘why don’t you come to South Africa and we’ll do a big road trip’. So I just jumped on a plane and came over.”
“We hired some bikes in Johannesburg and we were going to ride to Cape Town. One of the guys in the group was a professional base jumper. We were supposed to ride to all these beautiful places where he was supposed to jump. But we didn’t stop, we just went flat out and, we never stopped and he was pissed off, he is still upset until today.”
“Because we didn’t stop, it only took us one day to go from Johannesburg to Cape Town, it was nice. We did some stupid stunts on the way, but we never stopped for base jumping. One place we ran out of fuel in the mountains. We had to push one of the bikes to a very dodgy gas station and we paid a fortune for a little bit of fuel. It was a mess.”
“We arrived in Cape Town. We had a little bit of fun. Cape Town is a great place, I love it. But I was racing at that time so I could not stay too long. After a few days I had to jump onto a plane and head back to Europe.”
Richard Porter – the Sniff in Smith and Sniff – describes two diametrically opposite drives that vie for the title of his Favourite Detour.