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Mikkola Superfan - Jan-Willem van Essen, Holland

Why did I become a supporter of Heikki Mikkola? Most probably I admired his enormous dedication and his will to succeed. A top cyclist who just showed himself in the cyclists’ quarters of who you would meet walking along the track and who you could approach, without fearing that he would ignore you. My father brought me along to the biggest races in Holland from an early age. I always liked the Scandinavian racers the best.
At a race in Sint-Anthonis I stood beside Bengt Aberg, Arne Kring and Ake Jonsson in full admiration. I asked for their signatures and even picked the protective paper in front of their starting numbers up from the floor an took them home as a souvenir. I was also a fan of Jarno Saarinen, a motor cyclist on the road and of Hannu Mikkola and Keke Rosberg, two car racers. You cuold say I had a thing going with the Fins! But after seeing Heikki Mikkola at work in 1974 during the Dutch Grand prix in Markelo, I new who would be my idol forever! I was thirteen years old and still remember quite vividly how I cheered for Heikki during the first manche, which he won. I also remember how disappointed I was when he gave up in the second manche after just one lap of racing, because he had hurt his foot . Weird really, when you think that my fellow Dutch racer Gerrit Wolsink also was part of the racing top and it would therefore have been more logical if I had been a Wolsink-supporter. Even though he was an excellent cyclist, Dutch GP in 1977.
I wasn’t a fan of him. That is why you wouldn’t have seen me cheer him on in Markelo. Or neither in Norg, during the I saw Heikki win two manches there much to my delight! I wasn’t really a fan of Roger DeCoster either and just wanted Heikki Mikkola to beat him as much as possible.Wow, how much did I look up to the bearded Fin, how much did I wish I could race like that! Heikki appealed to me because of his “bend it or shake it” style of racing. Every race he started at he wanted to win, he didn’t race for less. I never ever heard from Heikki that he raced for the starters fee and then returned to the racers quarters (except for Paal in 1970, when he had a high temperature!) I also never heard that Heikki wasn’t fair in his race style. He never pushed other racers to the side or cut them off track like many of his colleagues did. Heikki did everything by himself and achieved his results on his own, without any help of other racers. He didn’t have any team members that could support him and help lead him to a victory. I never went to races outside of Holland. This was because I took up motorcycling myself. Many times I took part in the same competitions as Mikkola. But I did got to the GP in Namen (B) every year and was there in 1978 when Heikki won both manches. I was soaked because of the rain, but it was well worth it! During Heikki’s career I collected many articles and saved them all. For a few years I had been thinking about showing all my material in some kind of way. Then I visited Guy Jamars website and it materialised from there. That was what I wanted too: my own site on which I could present everything I had. I have built an excellent relationship with Guy and he even managed to get me Heikki’s autograph when he went to Finland to visit him in 2005. I often wonder what Heikki thinks of my website and hope to meet him once so I can ask him if he has seen it and what he thinks of it himself. Heikki remains the greatest motorcyclist ever for me. It is shame though that he stayed with Husqvarna that long. I am certain he would have achieved as many world titles as Joel Robert! Four times world champion motorcross Heikki Mikkola, certainly my greatest idol!