Our last trip to Italy has been quite
busy. After the visits to Galleria
Ferrari, Lamborghini Museum and
Maserati Collection, we thought we
wanted to go watch some action
and we knew that those days the Mille Miglia
Rally was about to start in Brescia, on Lago di
Garda. This race is considered today the ‘’Most
Beautiful Race in the World’’ and here following I
will explain you why.
Its first edition was in 1927 and it
was a proper rally race, on open roads. It
always starts from Brescia, drives south to
Rome and comes back on the west coast
back to the start, for a total of 1000 Miles.
The fastest to cover this considerable distance
would win it. You can imagine the conditions,
the danger, the obstacles those
days. Cars were not like our modern GTs
and those drivers were brave pioneers of
rally racing. Quite often they had to face
gravel, bad tarmac, hard soil, wet conditions
and half of the race was driven in the night.
Every winner of those editions was a hero,
like a winner of a Carrera Panamericana.
After 24 yearly editions, in
1957 the race became a competition
based on fixed timing. The organizers
realised that it was becoming too dangerous
and they also wanted to invite all
the previous participants and winners,
with cars which were not competitive
against the most modern machines.
They changed the rules and imposed an
average speed and some fixed timing at
which every car had to cross time
checks. The more accurate the driver
and the co-pilot could cross those check
points the more points they got. The
team with more points would win the
race.
Nowadays it still works like this.
This allows year 1927 cars to compete
against the latest year 1957, without
having to push too hard for 1000 Miglia.
Cars produced after 1957 are not
allowed to participate. Every year a jury of
vintage cars experts select about 365
cars out of the thousands requests they
receive from everywhere in the world to
draw the starting list. All the cars that
are accepted have some special stories
to tell. Some of them have raced and won
Le Mans 24hrs, some of them belonged
to the founder of a car manufacturer,
some other are unique pieces with no
price. Some of them have raced the first
editions of the the race and won it. You
can find the most incredible concentration
of the most important cars ever produced
in the world, from 1927 to 1957.
Japanese, American, Russian, European
Teams show up with cars you would only
find in books and in most of cases these
priceless cars are driven only once a
year, at the 1000 Miglia.
Once I receive my press pass, I
decide to go to the 1000 Miglia Museum,
where all the 365 cars gather before the
start and I can assure you that, when you
enter that big yard, you get to see an
incredible display of machines. Ferrari,
Maserati, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Bentley,
Bugatti, Jaguar, Healey, Lancia, you name
it. You stand in the middle of the show
and anywhere you turn you see something
special that you cannot see in any other
event in the world. The teams prepare
their road books, fill their bottles, do the
final checkups of their stopwatches, control
the liquids of their oldies, have a bite
and wait for their start time. It is a wonderful afternoon and my right hand finger
keeps on clicking, capturing every corner
of these grand mamas.
I happened to watch several
1000 Miglia starts in the past but this
time, I am part of the show and we will
follow the race, driving our car inside the
ropes. I feel quite excited about it.
This is the race that belonged to
legends like Tazio Nuvolari, Alberto
Ascari, Stirling Moss and their cars, the
very ones that won in the 30s, 40s and
and 50s are still here, driven by other
drivers who proudly bring them to life to
the race they found success first. It is
indeed a glamorous event but you can
also feel the passion for these pieces of
style and engineering. You can see how
much care the drivers or the owner pay
to their four wheelers. These people are
first in love with the history of their
machines and then with the race itself.
The meaning of following that path again
driving seventy years old unique cars is
so rewarding and I understand why every
year so many request land on the scrutinising
desks who selects the participants.
We follow the convoy towards the
start line and the local police let us enter
the ropes few hundred meters after. We
are in the middle of the race and still in
the old town of Brescia. We drive inside
walls of people cheering and taking pictures.
We are behind a small group of
Jaguars XK 120s who quickly find their
way through the narrow roads, to hit the
B roads towards Verona, the first of the
many check points. Once we leave the
city, the speed increases and we find ourselves
cruising at prohibited speed. A
group of Mercedes 300 SL Gullwings
overtakes us and we decide to follow
them. We don’t know where we are going,
since we don’t have any road book, we
just trust these teams who seem to know
every inch of the road. It’s fun and it’s
incredible how these days you can still
legally race on open roads for 1,600
Kilometres. It’s a unique event and we
would follow the whole race down to
Rome and back but we quit after few
hours.
Now, I have a plan, I found the
perfect car to race the 1000 Miglia next
year. I cannot confess which is it but you
will find out soon. It’s Italian, it was born
in 1948, it raced in 1949 and there is
only one piece in the world.
