Portrait of the King as a Young Man

Found some guy’s personal karting website the other day.

Sure, it’s got the standard faded photos taken of long-forgotten races at tracks now silent and covered in weeds. And sure, it’s written in that crazy goddamn Laplander pig Latin I can’t make heads or tails of.

But it also has something more, something supremely wicked. It has this:

Know who that is? That’s right, you heathen bastard—it’s Mika Fucking Hakkinen.

Yup, he’s the little tough-ass who ditched his shirt to show off some beef for the chicks. Even back then he was baddest emmer-effer in the paddock.

Furthermore, even back in the day (long before his Flock of Seagulls phase) he was sporting enough to let the other guy stand atop the podium for the picture, as if Hak himself had somehow placed third.

Speaking of that “other guy,” it's none other than fellow Finnish Speed Freak Mika Salo. The chick in 2nd is one Taru Rinne, who would go on to be one of the first women to race in MotoGP (125cc).

My guess? Mika banged her.

It's an interesting story. No, not the one about Hak depucelating Rinne; the one about him and Salo. The two grew up down the street from each other near Helsinki and raced together as kids.

Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, by the time Hak was 12 he had forgotten more than most people will ever know about driving. That’s because he started racing in 1973, at the ripe aulde age of five (5).

Little known fact: Mika Hakkinen’s father took on a second job as a taxi driver to pay for the young feller’s karting career.

Better-known fact: I don’t know how it was back in ’73, but when I went to Helsinki in 1991, every last taxi in town was a new-model BMW or Mercedes. Maybe Hak, Sr. didn’t have it quite so bad? Who knows?

But I digress. In the end, whereas Hakkinen’s destiny was to become the Greatest Sportsman of All Time, Salo bumped around Japanese F3000 before having a basically mediocre run in F1.

These pictures were taken in 1979 or 1980, which would make Hak about 11 or 12. Let them be an inspiration to one and all.

Kimi Gets Old, Flavio Gets His Balls Gargled

No, that's not Sam Neil, asspipe.

Anyway, I won't lie to you--I feel ashamed of myself for posting that pic.

Maybe posting this one will make it all better:

Succhiarlo, leccacazzi puttanna! Succhiarlo!!

Season's over...

...all is black, etc.

Anyway, I'd like to commemorate the 2005 F1 season with a picture of Kimi, shown here as he brazenly dry-humps a random girl singing at a bar.

And, of course, here's him getting violently eighty-sixed a short while later.

Good on ye, Kimi. I knew you were one of us.