Famous names from other disciplines trying their hand at rallying is not especially unusual, even at world championship level.
Formula 1 drivers Robert Kubica, Kimi Räikkönen and Stéphane Sarrazin even had spells where they contested the World Rally Championship on a full-time basis.
Kubica secured the WRC2 title in 2013 and recorded a few top-10 finishes overall, including in top-line World Rally Cars. Räikkönen managed a best finish of fifth in his two-year spell driving Citroën World Rally Cars. Sarrazin went one better, with the highlight of his spell as a works Subaru driver being fourth position on the 2005 Tour de Corse.
Plenty of top-line racing drivers have contested one-off WRC events, usually their home rounds of the championship, including Derek Bell, Martin Brundle and Derek Warwick, who crashed his Subaru Legacy out of 13th overall on the third day of the 1990 RAC Rally.
French F1 driver Erik Comas rallied extensively in the latter years of his racing career, 12-time F1 grand prix winner Carlos Reutemann scored two WRC podium finishes at home in Argentina in the 1980s and then there’s MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, who was on the fringes of the top 10 in a trio of WRC drives in the noughties.
Another to sample the switch from two to four wheels was six-time speedway world champion Tony Rickardssson, who twice contested Rally Sweden a couple of decades ago.
But all of the above have something in common: they were already professionals in other forms of motorsport before trying their hand at rallying. Of course, competing in world championship rallying wouldn’t have been easy for them, but imagine how tough it would be for sports stars from entirely different arenas?
Enter NHL ice hockey star Teemu Selänne who, 25 years ago this week, started Rally Finland for the third and final time.
Selänne had a stellar 23-year career in the NHL, spent mostly with the Anaheim Ducks with whom he won the Stanley Cup title in 2007. He was the league’s leading goal-scorer in 1999 and remains the 12th leading regular-season goal-scorer in NHL history. In a decorated career, Selänne also won four Olympic medals.
But, perhaps unsurprisingly for a Finn, Selänne also had a love of motorsport, and rallying in particular. Being a leading player in one of the most physical sports on earth, Selänne was therefore not strictly allowed to partake in other dangerous activities. But that wasn’t going to stop him sliding sideways through forests on four wheels!
Nicknamed the ‘Finnish Flash’ in the NHL, Selänne initially rallied under the pseudonym Teukka Salama (which translates as ‘Teddy Lightning’ or ‘Teddy Flash’) so as not to draw attention to his extra-curricular activities.
Evidence of his early rallies is therefore sparse, but there is some YouTube footage, for example, of him competing on the 1994 Paalupaikka Rally which is believed to be his debut. He also did same event in ’96, then known as Rally Channel Four, and went off the road into a field.
His first attempt at Rally Finland, or the 1000 Lakes Rally as it was still known then, came in 1995. The rotational policy operating at the time meant it wasn’t actually a WRC round that year. On his debut over the famous stages, Selänne’s Group N Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 retired with engine failure.
Two years later he was back, now piloting a Lancer Evo III. An impressive effort took Selänne to 33rd overall, and 14th in Group N, from 103 starters.
In 1998, the ‘Finnish Flash’ stepped up to a full-fat World Rally Car. Seeded at number 51, Selänne’s Toyota Corolla steadily worked its way forward to finish a creditable 24th overall (from 116 starters and 62 finishers).
That unfortunately would be Selänne’s last WRC start. The Ducks organization was well aware of Selänne’s summer hobby by this stage. But in 1999, a testing accident – which injured the other car’s driver, the president of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association – earned Selänne a hefty fine and some bad headlines.
