ONE MORE TRY; Mika Salo isn't ready for the sidelines.(News)

Byline: BILL McGUIRE

Here's a racing tale that's been told a thousand times-not for any truths it might contain, but for being so easy to tell, with a plot line like a television movie. Two boys grow up a few miles from each other, in the same city, Helsinki, Finland. They are within two years in age, and have the same name, Mika. Both become professional race drivers. Fortune smiles upon one; he becomes two-time world driving champion. For the other, there is nothing but a struggle.

We didn't come out and ask, but Mika Salo must have long grown tired of the comparisons to Mika Hakkinen. Whatever the coincidences in their lives and careers, their paths diverged in the 1990 British F3 series. Salo won six races that year. But Hakkinen won nine, and the season championship, vaulting from F3 to F1. After two years with Lotus, Hakkinen joined McLaren, earning those world championships and superstar status.

Meanwhile, Salo went to Japan and Formula Nippon. He shrugs at the memory. "Hakkinen had Keke Rosberg to manage him. I had to do it all myself,'' he says.

Toward the end of the 1994 season, Salo got his F1 invitation, from Lotus. "I knew Peter Collins from racing in Britain, so he asked me to do [the] Japan [race]. I'm sure it was because I was already over there, so they wouldn't have to pay me to go.''

Lotus kept Salo on for Australia, but the opportunity evaporated as the team dissolved. Released by Collins, Salo spent three years with Tyrrell, where his best finishes were five fifth-places. Then came a year with Arrows (where he captured a fourth at Monaco), but he felt more disappointment as that team headed into decline.

Salo sat out the next year, though he competed in three races with BAR, substituting for an injured Ricardo Zonta. By far, the high point of his F1 career, he says, was standing in for Michael Schumacher for six races at Ferrari in 1999. Not for the honor, but for the revelation.