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1000 Miglia Just one great round of applause. It’s called the most beautiful race and maybe it really is. The experience helps us understand why. by Antonio Ghini
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The authentic enthusiasm of 1000 Miglia attendees is thrilling. As in the past, race participants are always surrounded by spectators.
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T
here is only one thing that the “real” Mille Miglia, which sadly ended in 1957, and the historic one held today have in common. The one thing that is the real reason this magical event is held each year. Anyone who has ever been part of the re-enactment has certainly felt it without fully realizing its value. It is neither the route nor the unique cars — even though they are fully certified to compete — which span the years from 1927 to 1957. Nor is it the risk, at times unbelievably high, of a speed test on the roads of that era, when safety features and asphalt surfaces were very different from today’s. So what is it that the two races have in common? To understand it, we need to travel back in time, to leap back to the 1940s when, after the interruption imposed by a terrible war, the desire to start living again ran wild. Italy, spurred by a characteristically Latin enthusiasm, embarked on a reconstruction that brought not only work but the first signs of prosperity; cinematography testified to this reality with wonderful neorealist films, which often portrayed the growing desire to enjoy a motorized means of transport. It didn’t matter much if this was just a scooter, like a Vespa or Lambretta, an old Topolino, or one of the first models designed for mass motorization. Motor vehicles also roused spirits because they could be used for racing, but in races that were offered to the public without the need to go to a race track and, thus, without the inconvenience of getting there and having to pay for an entry ticket. These were races on the roads, transformed for one day into daredevil tracks for thrilling competitions. This gave rise to the Motogiro, a full-blown motorcycle speed tour around Italy, in which hundreds of participants set off on an adventure with no assistance or certainties, driven solely by an incredible amount of enthusiasm. The Mille Miglia was a race so well-loved that it was even held in 1940 when the war had already begun, providing Enzo Ferrari with the opportunity to make his debut with his first proper creation, the 815 Auto Avio Costruzioni, with a driver who went on to become famous, Alberto Ascari. With the race now having a clear and definitive meaning, and representing a set of essential values, the Brescia organizers came up with the idea to use a strong graphic symbol to indicate to competitors the direction they would take at the most difficult points of the route — and this idea can be appreciated even more now. Their symbol was a red arrow on a white
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background, with the immediately recognizable number 1000 replacing the word Mille. For Italians, the appearance of the arrows on the roads along the route, between late April and early May, was the sign that a very special Sunday was coming up, when the roads would be closed and hundreds of cars unleashed to race along them. Today, that arrow is much more than a brand mark. Over and above the commercial value that history has ascribed to it, it holds the emotion of anyone who still remembers those times, with the smell of burnt castor oil, and the screeching of production tires being tested to their limit over a long and treacherous
course. It also holds a certain pride — and in many cases envy — for those who keep the memory alive each year. That arrow is part of the heritage of the city of Brescia, of Italy, and of anyone who understands that the car is one of the most important symbols of modern-day culture.
Unforgettable impressions This author belongs to the group of those who remember that extraordinary event, something that was much more than just a race. Having seen with my
Where else in the world can you pass by places so rich in history and culture, while driving your jewel? The famous red arrow guides the drivers.
own eyes those vehicles with big numbers painted in white lead on their doors and hoods whiz past, year after year, between 1948 and 1957, right at the foot of the Apennines after negotiating the final challenge over the Futa and Raticosa passes to reach Bologna from Florence, is something so special that it cannot be fully described. Indeed, it was in Bologna that the name of the winner started to be murmured among the spectators who thronged the sides of the road. In fact, the results would begin to take shape there because of the organizers’ ingenious idea of using the start time as the race number for the vehicles. This way, the tiny Isetta that set off first from Brescia
had the number 2200, which meant 10 on the dot on the Saturday evening, while the big sports cars that were aiming for victory had numbers that began with 5 or 6, because they had set off between five and six in the morning. So, if car number 611 went by six minutes after number 555, this meant it had about a ten-minute lead over the competitor that had left before it. It seems complicated described like this, but by the time the cars reached Bologna, around ten hours after the start, the departure spacings had opened up to the point where the situation could be clearly discerned. This was the case for all classes. The first cars would go past at around 11 in the
morning. Because I had the good fortune to live in a house with a garden that looked out onto the Via Murri, a few hundred meters from the stamping and refuelling checkpoint, I would cling onto the garden fence from 9 o’clock, waiting for the first car to go past, which happened, more or less, at 11! It didn’t take me too many years to realize that this would be a Renault 4CV. How, you might ask? Because the first cars to set off were production cars with engines up to 750 cc in size, known as touring cars. These would include Isettas, in fact, as well as Fiat Topolinos, and then 600s. The French Spiders would also set off in this class, as well as compact and aerodynamic
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On their way to Bologna in a 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK, Thomas Weber and Michael Bock allow themselves to take a short break.
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Renault 4CVs with sturdy 750 cc engines, and Panhard Dynas, with their aluminium bodywork. Six or seven Renaults would duly go past, followed by a couple of Panhards, and then silence would return for a good fifteen minutes. There was no need to look at the race numbers, because at this point they were all in the 750 class. But you did need to look soon after, when quite different cars started to arrive, very close to one another, with the thundering sports cars often having gained hours on the slower cars that preceded them, thanks to their distinct performance capabilities. Social networks? Smartphones? Hard to imagine, but news flew around as if the ranks of the public were made of human optical fiber. This was seen on Sunday, May 3, 1948. Cars continued to zoom past, the public participated, sometimes applauding this or that driver. That was the norm. Then, at one point, even before a strange red car appeared with no hood and no mudguards, driven by a skinny man wearing a cap on his head and old-fashioned goggles, the public started to cheer and applaud, some even stepping down off the pavement to capture the moment better. It moved me, although at the time I didn’t know why — I was eight years old, but that image has always remained before my eyes and in my heart. I had seen
Jay Leno with Ian Callum, celebrated at Piazza del Campo in Siena.
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Tazio Nuvolari with his mechanic Scapinelli go past, and they were at the head of the race, dominating it. Enzo Ferrari, whom I met in person some years later, was a few hundred meters from me, waiting for him at the checkpoint. It had been barely a year since he had started producing racing cars under his own name, and, together with the indomitable “Nivola,” he could have written a momentous page in the history of motorsport: after a shifting relationship in the past, he and Nuvolari could have added their names to the golden roll of the most magical race in the world. The public was fully aware of all this, with news of the arrival of Nuvolari’s battered Ferrari travelling faster than its famous and beloved driver. But it was not to be: in Reggio Emilia, less than 100 kilometer on and not too far from Brescia, a leaf spring connection in the now battered 166 SC gave way, and the legend was never written.
Enzo Ferrari and the Mille Miglia Many years later, when I had the opportunity to spend more than an hour alone with him in pleasant banter at the Ferrari offices, I reminded Enzo Ferrari of this episode. He just smiled. I was hoping for a comment,
but he just said, “The Mille Miglia, eh…” Perhaps the disappointment was still raw, or perhaps, at a time when his single-seaters had started winning again, he preferred to turn the conversation towards Pironi and Villeneuve. But let’s not go off on a tangent. At the beginning we asked ourselves a question: What is the reason for the persistent success of this race, sixty years after its discontinuation? It would be easy to continue just living with memories, such as the years of driving rain — a not entirely rare feature of the race — and the time when Eugenio Castellotti became a huge crowd-pleaser after maintaining an average of 137 km an hour for the entire race, despite the weather, in his Ferrari 290MM. Incidentally, it should be pointed out that the race, held on normal roads, involved a number of level crossings, with the drivers required to wait patiently and restart in the style of today’s safety car pull-off into the pits. Occasionally, reckless individuals got spectators to raise the barriers so as not to waste time. Another memory is of seeing Moss’s Mercedes 300SLR speed past, with the journalist Jenkinson as a passenger, fearlessly reading the notes he had taken during a reconnaissance mission on the roads. This pales slightly, however, when compared to the
A long and demanding trip: Finally arriving in Rome after 16 hours.
nerve of the photographer Klementaski, who found a way to take memorable photographs and even change the film on his camera while sitting next to Peter Collins in a Ferrari 315S. That year, 1955, Moss set the absolute record for the Mille Miglia: ten hours and seven minutes, at an average of 157 km per hour. Incredible! I was looking forward to turning 18 and getting my driving license, so that I could take part in that race. But the Guidizzolo tragedy of 1957 did not allow me to. The Mille Miglia would not be held again. It all seemed destined for oblivion: The checks and affixing of race numbers in Brescia, the waiting in line before departure on Viale delle Vittorie, the leap in the dark on roads that were unknown and fraught with danger, the adrenaline that pushed contestants beyond fatigue, the arrival in Brescia with satisfaction, and — incredible but true — a desire for the next race already. But when I presented myself for the checks in Brescia, with a magnificent 250 Tour de France, to take part in the re-enactment, it was all still there: the
crowd that thronged the checking area, the people looking at you with a mixture of admiration and envy, the waiting for departure from the famous platform, with the sound of the person in front of you getting louder the closer you got to your turn. Then, your name and your car were announced by the speaker, you saw the flag, and you were off toward adventure, with masses of people around you who remember those wonderful years. And that is the answer to the question of what binds the 1000 Miglia experiences, and what makes them unique and unparalleled: the presence of the public. A presence not only in Brescia, but a constant presence, in the villages, in the towns, at the checkpoints… An enthusiastic and knowledgeable crowd, helped by the mayors of the various towns along the route, to make you feel like the lucky hero of a long-awaited and much-admired event. Feeling was so strong about the re-enactment in Italy that the vehicles were allowed to drive through places usually inaccessible to cars, such as the San Marino Rocca, the piaza of theChurch of the Saint in Assisi, some of the most beautiful sites of ancient Rome, the Piazza del Campo in Siena — yes, the
one where the Palio is held — and the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. You arrive with your car, be it a Ferrari or a Mercedes, or even an Austin Healey, an Aurelia B20, a Fiat 1100, or a little Topolino, and you become a hero. Back then, the heroism lay in the risk and in the dream that each spectator projected onto the driver that he or she wanted to be. Today, individuals in the race, with numbers on their doors and fatigue in their eyes, represent a different heroism: that of helping to keep alive a memory that Italians do not want to give up, a memory from a world where automobiles were for the few, and drivers were the ones who were able to put them through the most extreme challenges. Today, that reality is being regenerated around the Mille Miglia, as eligible cars are few in number and often rare, and because, in truth, there are so many people who would like to be in your place, behind the wheel, with tired eyes and a brain split between dream and reality. Exactly as it was then.
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