Rauno Aaltonen and the Revolution Behind the Wheel
A few days ago, at the British Classic Car Meeting in St. Moritz , I met Rauno Aaltonen, who was attending the event as a guest. In the photo, you can see him (right) alongside JP Rathgen (Classic Driver, left).
Rauno Aaltonen won the Monte Carlo Rally, the Safari Rally, and many other racing events in the 1960s and 1970s. It's no coincidence that he's called the “Rally Professor”—he not only drives fast but also understands the physics behind it.
After the gathering, I went home and started looking for one of my first car books; finally, I found it again: *Revolution Behind the Wheel—The New Driving Technique*, by Rauno Aaltonen. I had bought it over 40 years ago with my meager allowance and devoured it, because I wanted to become a good driver.
In this book, Rauno Aaltonen documented his understanding of driving physics and driving technique. The 160-page work, published in the late 1970s, was written in the context of the BMW M driver training programs, for which I naturally had neither the means nor the right car. But I soaked up the experience Rauno documented in this book like a sponge back then.
Whether that really made me a better driver remains to be seen. But when I heard Rauno talking shop with a colleague over dinner about suspension tuning and setup, I did see one or two pages of the book flash before my eyes again.
