The man behind the wheel of the tragic Ferrari crash at the 1957 Mille Miglia wasn’t even supposed to be driving that day. “It was the only race that frightened me, actually.” Alfonso de Portago, International Playboy and ‘Gentleman Driver’ “Imagine going up a large incline towards a village and going at 185 miles per hour without knowing which way the road goes,” said Moss. Stirling Moss, the late British race car driver who won the Mille Miglia in 1955, described the race to CNN in 2012. Drivers pushed their cars to the limit, knowing very well that the smallest mistake could result in disaster. Crowds of spectators, including families with children, lined the route to see the fastest sports cars in the world up close and personal. The very thing that made the Mille Miglia so thrilling is what made all public road races of that era so dangerous. Officials cancelled the 1939 Mille Miglia, but the race proved so popular that they reinstated it in 1940. A speeding sports car driven by two amateurs launched over a tram line and killed 10 spectators, including seven children. In 1938, a gruesome crash occurred outside of Bologna. The Mille Miglia itself was no stranger to tragedy. The explosion and fiery debris killed 82 spectators, an unthinkable death toll. Just two years earlier in 1955, the racing world was rocked by the deadliest crash in its history.ĭuring the 24-hour Le Mans race in France, a Mercedes-Benz traveling 150 miles per hour collided with another car and went flying into the grandstand. “He expressed doubts the night before the race-that what he’s doing is actually bringing death to people.” The Most Dangerous Sport in the Worldįerrari had every reason to question the ethics of automobile racing. “Maybe it was the deaths of Dino or Castellotti that made him more sensible to the whole issue of dying,” says Dal Monte. The night before the start of the 1957 Mille Miglia, Ferrari gave a speech at a big banquet in Brescia. “Something had changed within Enzo and the way he was looking at motor racing,” says Luca Dal Monte, author of the biography Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automotive Empire. For the first time in his life, Enzo Ferrari publicly expressed doubts about dedicating his life to such a dangerous sport. When he was finally ready to return to work, Enzo suffered a second painful blow-his star driver Castellotti was killed in a training accident on the Ferrari test track in Modena.Ĭastellotti’s death came just weeks before the 1957 edition of the Mille Miglia. Enzo was inconsolable and briefly considered quitting Ferrari. Their beloved 24-year-old son, Dino, succumbed to a years-long battle with muscular dystrophy. Less than two months later, personal tragedy struck Enzo and his wife Laura. The grand champion was Eugenio Castellotti, one of the brightest young stars on team Ferrari. In April of 1956, the Ferrari racing team was victorious at the Mille Miglia, winning the first four places. But 1956 proved to be a year of both triumph and tragedy for Enzo and his company. Ferrari’s first love was racing, and he only started selling luxury sports cars to fund his racing ambitions.īy the mid-1950s, Ferrari the company had emerged as a major player in professional racing, both in the single-seat Formula 1 category and in open road races like the Mille Miglia. But he found his true calling off the track, first as a manager of racing teams in the 1930s and then as a visionary carmaker in the 1940s. Ferrari began his career in the 1920s as a race car driver for Alfa Romeo. Classic Cars Before the Race, Death and Doubt Haunt FerrariĮnzo Ferrari is famous for his single-minded pursuit of victory.
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