Pierre-Etienne Samin leads countryman Raymond Roche at the rainy 1985 Dutch TT at Assen in the Netherlands. Samin was an endurance racing specialist who’d won the prestigious Le Mans 24 and Bol d’Or 24 Hour races and perhaps even more impressively scored the pole for the Suzuka Eight Hour in 1982 with the factory Suzuki squad. Samin won an incredible nine of 10 poles in World Endurance Championship racing that season.  In 1985 he was given the opportunity to race with the French Elf Honda 500cc Grand Prix squad at just two rounds, the Dutch TT and the French Grand Prix.  Samin earned excellent results with a fifth at Assen and sixth at in the GP at Le Mans. That was it though for Samin in GP racing. He came, did very well, but afterwards went back to endurance racing. His Grand Prix performances showed the incredible depth of racing talent in World Endurance racing in that era.

Pierre-Etienne Samin leads countryman Raymond Roche at the rainy 1985 Dutch TT at Assen in the Netherlands. Samin was an endurance racing specialist who’d won the prestigious Le Mans 24 and Bol d’Or 24 Hour races and perhaps even more impressively scored the pole for the Suzuka Eight Hour in 1982 with the factory Suzuki squad. He finished a very credible fifth in in the 500c Grand Prix at Assen that year. (Henny Ray Abrams photo)