The King of the Mountains is dead. Mauro Nesti, 78, winner of eight European Hill Climb Championships—six of them in succession from 1983-1988—and 17 Italian titles in the same branch of the sport, died at his home in Bardalone, Italy in November after a long illness.
Nesti won the same number of European hillclimb titles as his more famous predecessors Rudolf Caracciola, Hans Stuck, Lodovico Scarfiotti and Wolfgang von Trips put together. And he was the runner-up in 1973, 1974, 1978 and 1979. Almost all in a Lola T296 BMW and an Osella PA9 BMW.
The ever-smiling Nesti had a well-developed sense of humor and once said, “I took those three corners really well. It’s a pity there was no bar around, otherwise I would have bought myself a drink.”
He started out in the ’50s as a motorcycle racer and worked his way up to being a works MV Agusta rider. He moved to four wheels in 1963 by borrowing his cousin’s Abarth 850 for hillclimbs and drove a Tecno in Formula 3 without much success.
Mauro turned to hillclimbing in 1972 and, with the help of a local sponsor, bought a 2000-cc Chevron B21 with which he won the Cesana-Sestriere right away. He went on to win a total of 450 hillclimbs, including Italy’s Rieti-Terminillo no fewer than 14 times and the Trento-Bondone nine.
Mauro once said, “If you ever read these words, it means I have lost the most demanding race of my life. I would like to say farewell to all my fans and friends, thanking them for the affection they have always shown me.”
