Horribly Beautiful
The story of the Mille Miglia begins in 1921 when the Auto Club di Brescia organized the first Italian Grand Prix. Seeing the success of this race the much larger Automobile Club of Milan built the Autodromo Nazionale Monza and had the 1922 Italian Grand Prix held on their new course. This outraged the people of Brescia but it was not until 1926 when Aymo Maggi conceived the idea of a road race for sports cars that they were able to exact some measure of revenge. This race run over a 1000-mile course of closed public roads traveled from Brescia to Rome and back again. These were one thousand sometimes desperate miles lined with cheering crowds just inches from the cars such that horns would blare, lights would flash and even an occasional twitch of the car’s rear end was required to convince the gathered throng to make way.
Racing through this corridor of brick and human flesh, across centuries old bridges and narrow lanes took a special skill that would prompt Enzo Ferrari to declare “No driver could ever say that he had achieved his victor’s laurels if he had not won at Brescia.” The Mille Miglia was an Italian party that only the German Rudolf Caracciola and the Englishman Stirling Moss were able to crash. More than a race it was a mad dash through Italy with cars leaving the starting point at Brescia in 1 minute intervals. The number on the car corresponding to its departure time. The cars were released in reverse order to their expected performance so that during the whole of the race the more powerful cars were hunting down their less powerful adversaries. The great Tazio Nuvolari remarked that driving the Mille Miglia was like drinking an exotic cocktail: “You might not be able to name all of the ingredients, but once you have sampled it, you could never forget its taste. “
