This is the first 350 motor ever built and now resides in the Mark Suter outboard motor collection. It was Mr. Rossi's personal motor with which he won the National Championship in 1997 at Cypress Gardens. Rossi sold it after the races at Cypress Gardens to Ed Thirlby, who raced Konigs at the time. Mark Suter happened to see the motor soon after Ed Thirlby had purchased it from Rossi. Ed Thirlby told Mark that he bought it mainly to find out why it was so fast. He said it had some new-fangled port that goes directly from the reeds to the combustion chamber but he wasn't sure how it worked. Little did they both know at that time that this feature was the now widely popular "7th port" that all of the top motors are using. Mark Suter received confirmation from Rex Hall that the motor is indeed the one that was raced by Mr. Rossi (serial number 1), which won the 1997 World and European Championships. Mark told Rex that the parts he received included some pistons and rods for use with 15mm wrist pins. Rex had thought all 350s were built exclusively with 16mm pins and wasn't sure what these smaller pins were from. Mr. Rossi told Rex that the 15mm pins were correct for Mark's motor because the 16mm pins did not become available until the start of the 1998 350 builds. Thus, the 15mm parts helped to confirm the pedigree of this motor.