Charles Hobbs writes: Roland Salomon was born in Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland on the 21st February 1935, joined by his brother Roger in 1937. His father was employed as a railway Station Officer at Lengau near Biel, moving the family to Zaziwil in Emmental in 1945 and Lausen in 1950 as his career progressed.
After secondary school Roland joined the mathematics and natural sciences school in Basel. It was in Basel that he became interested in the developing sport of tethered model car racing, designing, constructing and racing his own cars. Hitch-hiking as a teenager to the circuit in Luton, England, travelling to the European Championships in Sweden in 1956, where he set a new world record of 141.8 kmh. In practice in Turin in 1959 he achieved 160.9 kmh, but some of the customers of his cars beat him in the actual race. He became World Champion twice and European Champion three times in his class.
Leaving home in 1959 to join Siemens in Zurich as a designer, through a model-car friend he became involved in the first generation of go-karts in Switzerland. Roland was helping his friend with the construction and maintenance of karts for sale (and designed a mechanical disc brake, which obtained a patent) but soon found that driving karts was much more exciting. He travelled to his first race in Geneva in 1960 in his Citroen 2cv “Transporter” in which he often slept. Adapting a German Konig engine for kart installation, he won an international Kart race in Stuttgart in 1962.
The Siemens position was short-lived, and he accepted an invitation to work on a design of textile cleaning machinery, the success of which led to the formation of Provap AG with Roland as MD and minority shareholder, and a move to Frauenkappelen near Bern. The company accountant, Marlyse, who he knew from Zurich became his wife, and mother of their daughter Eliane in 1965.
Having caught the racing bug from karting, a stripped-out and modified 2cv was the natural progress until replaced in 1964 by a 1000cc Cosworth-engined Ford Anglia for against-the-clock slaloms and hill climbs. Motor racing then was not as segregated as it is today - particularly in Switzerland where circuit racing had been banned since 1955. His first single-seater was anex-Jo Siffert Lotus 20 and with Marlyse as his racing manager he embarked on a successful career as an amateur international single-seat racing driver on tracks in France, Sweden, Italy and West and East Germany. In 1968 at Hockenheim with Clay Regazzoni and Juerg Dubler he won the European Nations Cup for Switzerland. He became Swiss single-seat champion - Schweizer Rennwagenmeisterschaft in 1969, 1973, 1974 and 1976, and won the Swiss Mountain Cup in 1970. In 1974 he was elected President of SAR, the Swiss Auto Racing Club.
Retiring from racing in 1976, and divorcing Marlyse, he set up his own company, Rosal, to supply commercial laundry and dry-cleaning equipment. Seeking to gain the Kulm Hotel as a customer it was hardly surprising that he was attracted by the Cresta Run. Soon he was riding 44s and achieved a best time from Top of 59.10. He won the Georges Prade cup in 1979 and the Nigel Moores in 1983. He liked the "challenging curves with no danger of an expensive engine re-build" but most of all he enjoyed the company of the Club - holding conversations in four languages, belonging to the St. Moritz Old Money Kummel Drinking Club and the Royal St. Moritz Sporting Club (9 Presidents, no members), and making many new friends, particularly British, leading to him renting a cottage on Duncan Stewart’s Dorset farm, where he entertained Cresta friends and regularly attended the Goodwood Revival.
1979 also brought a new wife, Margreth, three new children, and the purchase of a winter apartment in the Engadine. However, they separated in 1994 whilst the laundry supply sector suffered due to changing textiles and consumer demands.
During this uncertain time Roland met Denise, a lovely Brazilian lady, whom he got married to in 2017 in Bern. Roland gained a young stepdaughter Alannah who has since blossomed in Switzerland as a chef.
Off circuit Roland later drove C, D,and E type Jaguars but was a serial Citroen owner: it was sad that his 56th and final all-electric Citroen apparently failed to complete the 330km journey from his home to the Cresta summer event this year.
In 1980 he fulfilled a lifetime ambition and obtained his Pilot’s Licence and became a co-owner of a Piper Arrow Turbo which enabled many trips for business or pleasure, and often with Eliane as navigator.
To drive with Roland in Switzerland was to hear a litany of restaurants past and present remembered for the food and company enjoyed. He also knew where to eat the best Bouillabaisse (Marseilles), the best Filet de Perche (Vieux Navire), the best Crab (Whites), Scampi (Commerce) etc, etc, had a keen interest in art and architecture and was passionate about Jazz.
Roland seconded my membership application in 1987 and introduced me to Eliane at the Cocktail Party in Londonin 2007. None of us would then have guessed that in 2023 I would become his son-in-law!
Roland was found dead at home on Saturday 25th July.
To Roland Salomon: Exceptional Swiss Sportsman - Cresta Member - Convivial Companion - Adieu!
A memorial service will be held on the 11th September at 13.30 in the Dreifaltigkeit Church in Bern.
(Roland has put his life story on-line in detail in German at rosal.ch)
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