Gianni Rolando The Hunter
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
