Paroniperjantai - Kymiring
S.U.F Helsinki crew put together an event to enjoy a day at KymiRing race track in southern Finland. It was Friday and what a better way to call the event #Paroniperjantai, just as we celebrate the motorcycle great, The Daredevil Jarno “ Paroni “ Saarinen every Friday.
Since SarpanevaUhrenFabrik was founded in 2003, motorbikes, steel and cars have connected in Stepans´s creations. His first watch was made from Harley kickstart pinion and we owe the startup money for motorbikes as Stepan sold his Harley Shovelhead to fund the beginning of Sarpaneva watches. Paroni model blends lots of this racing and mechanical spirit into a mechanical watch and now it was time to unleash our inner Flying Finns at the racetrack.
Most of the people who came along were friends and family of the brand. Everyone shares interest in cars, bikes and surely watches. In many ways, motorsport and events like this does connect people in many levels and ensures an epic time and fun. That is what it´s all about, use your time in the things you like and play around, even as an adult.
For the location, KymiRing in Iitti was a natural choice. It is a fantastic new racetrack that is “ The real deal “ when talking about racetracks in Finland. As many of you have heard, the MotoGP™ heads to Finland for a Finnish race in 2022. Great to have them back, last occasion took place in 1982. Kymiring track will be kind of a new business card of Finnish Flying Finns. It has been ages ago when we had a real world class racetrack in Finland that was a stage for International racing, what a better way to enjoy it than taking a spin on it.
The location does work the part. One can see much of the action in various points and even if the place is not yet totally finished you can feel the crowds and the atmosphere. Smiley faces and good times were the things we wanted to set the event up for. Good phase racetrack action, keeping the amount of cars or bikes at the track in bare minimum and not taking any changes for accidents. Funny enough, on the very same day we were driving cars and bikes on this track, the ski season begun in Lapland.
Luck did play its positive part for the timing. Early October is not the best bet for dry driving conditions, but the weather was on our side. The bikes had a bit troubles to get traction in the first parts of the day, but road going cars proved good grip and the track started to dry well during the day. When it was time to unleash some real trackmachines, the choice of tyres were wet. On slicks the LMP3 Prototype was pretty much all over the place, same as Valtonen Motorsport RX7 Time attack car.
And boy was those machines loud and fast. When Mika Salo jumped to pilot the LMP3, there was a real race atmosphere in the air. Mika came along with his son Max. Both familiar with fast machines, but still keen to give it a go if a chance was up there for grabs. A dedicated driving slots were allocated for bikes and unlimited race cars. Best to play it safe.
On the road car side, Porsche was the obvious choice for most of the cars seen during the day, but some of the highlight were sure on the non Porsche side. ´68 Camaro is not your usual track car, but Janne´s Garage came out to prove this wrong. His sorted out LS machines made noise and it made slides. Running brand new semi´s felt like dance, but boy this machine sounds fantastic. There is something brutal about those V8´s. Don't get us wrong, a Porsche with pretty much any hp rate is a joy to hear, but V8, much as in the LMP3 or Valtonen´s crazy RX7 just fantastic music to the ear.
Talking about Valtonen motorsport. It was great to see the car back in action. They had not run it in Kymiring before, so this was a perfect occasion to run track profile and build up the speed from there. Running low power the whole day was the plan, but we know what happens using a helmet. When flames started to spill out from the side exhaust pipes, we knew that Cristian had a blast as well. Not maybe +1500hp fun yet, but in a cold autumn day, it was best to keep it in safe rate.
The list of cool machines does not stop there. latest Supra, build for having fun at a track, sub 500hp RSR engines lightweight GT3, 812 Superfast and Italian Ducati bikes kept the tension up and spirits high. As much as this is about cars on the track, it is about people.
The chats between having a lunch and coffee or sipping non alcoholic Kukko beer on the paddock is really the thing on these events. Made for people to enjoy the moment. And it was just about that to wrap up this event. We hope more of this in the future and more event coverage for you all to enjoy along.
Kiitos #Paroniperjantai
