Milan was as silent as a village the day Ascari was buried. It took 15 carriages to cart away the flowers and wreaths that had come. The city was draped in black and as the funeral cortege wended along, the only sound was the mournful clip-clop of the horses.
The circuits of the Monza autodromo are in an immense forest (which the Italians call a park) near the city of Monza. The circuits share space with swimming pools, shooting ranges, camping grounds, etc., and they are open all the time for testing. With the completion of the new autostrada to the south, the circuit is only about an hour by fast sports car from Modena, site of the Ferrari, Maserati, and other race-car factories. There is a small circuit at Modena surrounding the city airport, and preliminary tests are carried out there. But for the real thing, drivers and cars go up to Monza.
Most of the Ferrari and Maserati contract drivers live at the Albergo Reale Hotel at Modena during the season, sharing the place with a dozen or so hangers-on, most of them young persons with some income who have come to worship at the shrine of the fast cars and those who drive them. I imagine the same thing happens in Hollywood on a larger scale, but probably with more sex involved; at Modena there does not seem to be much of that. The drivers are preoccupied, the hangers-on are mostly males who wish they were drivers themselves, and the drivers are either bored or annoyed by them. One of the ways you can recognize these hangers-on if you go to Modena is that they are always asking drivers to have a drink or cup of coffee with them. If the driver agrees, the conversation will be centered on such matters as the relative merits of one type of gearbox over another, the hangers-on speaking a jargon far more technical than that of the drivers. This sort of talk is very boring to listen to.
Usually, when there is some testing to be done at Monza, the drivers will come up in the morning in their own cars, holding the accelerator to the floor all the way and averaging about 100 miles per hour for the trip. The mechanics and vans travel separately. No mechanic will ever ride in the car of a race driver if he can help it. Sometimes the mechanics and a driver or two will go up in an ordinary car, say a Fiat, which is owned by the factory. When this happens the mechanic always drives, the driver sitting in the back fuming, the mechanic at the wheel flirting occasionally with 45 miles an hour, but mostly driving even more sedately, taking two and a half hours for a journey the driver would make in less than half that time.
"They treat us like children," I heard Phil Hill say one day. "As if it's not safe to trust us with a car. Some of them used to ride with those madmen Italian drivers back in the thirties and they think we're like that. If they do drive with you at a perfectly safe speed [safe to Hill on the Modena-Milan autostrada, which is wide, flat, straight and empty, is whatever the car will do flat out] they sit there petrified, biting their nails, as if we were certain to crash the next instant."
There is even the tale, possibly apocryphal, of the client who ordered a new Ferrari coupe and came to Modena to pick it up. He was told the car had to go to Monza for testing first, but he could ride up there in it with the test driver if he wanted. The client accepted, the test driver averaged 130 miles per hour from Modena to Monza, and when the two got there the client thanked the driver, his voice trembling uncontrollably, and ran and bought himself a two-horsepower Citroen instead.
In 1957 the Indianapolis cars came to Monza for the first "Race of Two Worlds," so called.
This race was not born out of any natural rivalry between American and European types of racing. None existed. A few European drivers had raced at Indianapolis, including Alberto Ascari and Rudolf Caracciola, both of whom crashed. A few Indianapolis drivers had raced in Europe, though none had won a major race since 1921.
The race was apparently fostered by the Italian officials who had been responsible for building the speed banking that had been incorporated into the road circuit and used for the 1956 Italian Grand Prix.
The thought had been to make the Italian Grand Prix more spectacular than ever by making the banked oval part of the road circuit. Speeds would be increased by 14 or 15 miles an hour. Cars would lap at 135 miles an hour, and would be visible from the main grandstands four times (twice high up on the bankings, twice on the straight), instead of just once, before plunging into the forest and the Curva Grande.
The 1955 Italian Grand Prix was run that way and was a flop. The steep banking was unsuited to any tires available. At high speeds, the banking seemed as furrowed as a plowed field. Drivers took a terrific pounding. Few cars lasted the distance. Castellotti and Musso, the two national favorites, both wobbled off with broken wheels.
Furthermore, the crowd didn't seem to like the race as much as in other years. Complaints showered in on the organizers, who nonetheless ran the race the same way in 1956, before returning to the original circuit in 1957.
Which left the sponsors of the expensive banking standing around naked, looking like fools. They had built a great track. But no one would race on it.
So the Race of Two Worlds came into being. Publicity-wise, togetherness-wise, it was a smashing idea, and was quickly sold to three major fuel companies, each of which would sponsor one heat. Bagsful of dough would go to the winners.
Next, organizers had to ensure American participation, To do this it was not necessary to promise starting money; the Americans were not used to so decadent a practice. It sufficed to broadcast how much the oil companies were putting up, and to rig the rules exactly to suit the Indianapolis cars. Though all European races are run clockwise, this one would run counterclockwise, because that's the only direction American cars turn in. There would be a rolling start, to favor the American cars, which have only two gears and must be push-started. The limit on engine size would be 4.2 liters, the size of the Offenhauser engine, although the European Grand Prix car carried an engine of only 2.5.
In short, the rules were Indianapolis rules, and the prize money was Indianapolis style prize money. The Indy cars began to arrive in bunches.
The European drivers looked around, realized that they could not possibly escape from such a race with honor, and declined the invitation.
An International Professional Drivers' Union was formed with Louis Chiron as president. This union denounced the race. None of its members would compete. When the world demanded a reason (the fact that the rules were rigged to favor the Americans appears never to have been considered as reason enough) the union declared that no tires existed that would fit the Grand Prix cars which could withstand 170-mile-an-hour lap speed. This was true. Special tires had been developed by Firestone for Indianapolis, had been tested at Monza on the banking, and had been found adequate. But these tires did not fit Grand Prix cars. It was pointed out by several drivers that it is no fun to have a tread fly off, or a tire burst, when traveling nearly three miles a minute.
In Indianapolis there was a great deal of coarse laughter. The reluctance of the Europeans was greeted as proof that they were "chicken," afraid to be shown up for what they were: "cheese champions." The Americans had always known Indy racing was best. This proved it. You had to have guts to race at Indy.
At the last minute three Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar sports cars took up the challenge. Two had finished first and second at Le Mans only the weekend before. The third was a practice car. The Jags were limited by their tires to 150 miles an hour, thirty below top speed on an unbanked road. The Indy cars were clocked at over 200 on the straight.
The Jags were outclassed, but David Murray sent them, saying: "We must have a British entry of some sort."
The race was won by Jimmy Bryan, who chewed a cigar all the way and accepted his trophy still chewing. He drove a Dean Van Lines Special plastered with advertisements for spark plugs, oil, etc. He was to win at Indianapolis the following year. He was never seen without his cigar. Mike Hawthorn always referred to him as "that walking ox, Jim Bryan."
Bryan won without any trouble, at least not from the Jags. Two by two the cars rolled past the pits led by the pace car, the nine low, squarish, luridly
decorated Indy cars up front. The Jags, which had qualified 10th, 11th, and 12th, brought up the rear. Then the pace car darted out of the way and the race was on. Twelve cars roared down the straight up onto the banking. The trees hid them.
Sixty seconds later the noise began to get louder and louder, then the cars shot out of the forest and were visible high up on the north curve banking. The British in the crowd began to laugh hysterically. The lead car was Jack Fairman's Jaguar. Fairman, going up through the gears, had built up a big lead while the ungeared Americans were still waiting to pick, up speed.
The chortling did not last long. Half a dozen Indy cars blasted by Fairman in the next hundred yards. In a moment the cars came by again and it was seen that the Jags were dropping farther and farther back. Bryan won the first heat, which took just over an hour. The Jags were eighth, ninth, and tenth because two Indy cars broke up under the terrific pounding of the bankings. Bryan won heat two also. The Jags finished fifth, sixth, and seventh, three more Indy cars going out with split pipes, struts, and tanks. Troy Ruttman won heat three, Bryan placing second and winning the overall race. Two more Indy cars failed to survive, and the Jags collected a bushel of prize money by finishing fourth, fifth, and sixth overall.
That the Jags could win several thousands of dollars while being lapped 12 times (Fairman), 18 times (John Lawrence) and 30 times (Ninian Sanderson), was to have an important bearing on the following year's race.
Bryan's average speed for the 500 miles had been 163 miles an hour. But not one of the Indy cars would have finished without hard work by mechanics during the hour-long pit stops between heats.
So the race proved that any reliable European car could win prize money, because not many of the Americans would finish. Probably the Europeans could not win, because the American cars had been developed specifically for this type of race, and no European manufacturer could afford to build such a car, from scratch, for just one race. The best they could do was modify existing models.
And so the following June, in 1958, the Americans came over again for the second, and probably last, Race of Two Worlds. Prize money was up to more than $80,000, about 40 times what Tony Brooks was to be paid for winning the Grand Prix of Italy there later in the season.
Before the race, Monza was swarming with individuals who planned to prove, on the basis of this race, the superiority of whichever cars or drivers were fastest. This was ridiculous.
Ranged against a dozen beautifully tuned Indianapolis machines were two four-year-old Jaguar sports cars, a modified 4.2-liter monoposto Ferrari in which Nino Farina had failed to qualify at Indianapolis four years before, and two oversize Ferraris put together from parts left over from the Formula Libre racing of 1952.
There were two spanking-new machines constructed especially for this race—a 3.8-liter Lister Jaguar belonging to Ecurie Ecosse, and a Maserati that the Eldorado ice cream company of Italy had had constructed for Stirling Moss at a cost of $21,000. These two cars had been tested, of course, but no one knew what they would do in competition.
One thing the race seemed sure to produce was resentment on both sides. A good start in this department was made the morning before. While Bryan was qualifying, a Jaguar driven by Ivor Bueb swerved in front of him.
Bryan, who was supposed to have an empty track, was furious. The European cars were "nothing but shitboxes," he declared to me. He did not think much of the drivers either. "I have been trying to get along with them," he said, "but as of now I quit trying."
A little later someone asked him if any of the European cars had a chance. "We'll blow them off the track," he sneered.
The quarrel was more than a personal one. In many ways it was a picture in miniature of the relationship between the United States and the rest of the Western world.
There is a curious dignity to European motor racing. The cars for the most part are factory-owned and they are painted the national colors, British green, Italian red, etc.
The drivers are aristocrats among athletes. In the past, many were either very rich or members of the nobility, or both. Even now, when that phase of it is apparently over, those who drive in Europe are often multilingual, educated, intelligent, careful. The sport itself is as socially accepted as polo or foxhunting, so much so that races are not even reported on the sports pages of newspapers, but are given a special spot. "You have no idea how much that one little fact has meant to the sport," Stirling Moss told me once.
The Indy drivers are quite the opposite. They are scrappers, men who have fought their way up from nothing to the point where an entire nation watches them for a few hours one day a year—and will have nothing to do with them the rest of the time, regarding them as reckless, uncouth, dirty. The Indy drivers seemed to resent dignity of any kind, and particularly when it was accorded to men just like themselves. They resented the fact that European contract drivers, because of starting money, are well paid, win or lose. They resented the Europeans' pride in their machines. It was true that a Grand Prix car could race on any kind of road, could turn all sorts of corners at speeds of from 10 to 170 miles per hour. But it could not match the sheer power of their own, so what was all the shouting about?
The Indy cars were unlike anything ever seen at Monza. They were longer and lower than Grand Prix cars, and were luridly decorated in cream, vermilion, gold, orange, and assorted colors. Their exhaust pipes were chrome and shone like mirrors in the sun. The seats were comfortably padded. Their steering wheels were rubber-covered to soften vibration.
To the Europeans, driving at Indianapolis, where there are only four corners, seemed not so much a matter of art and science as of brute courage. Bryan and the others must be courageous, they conceded, to make so much money, considering that they are paid only when they win.
At the same time, the Europeans (and that included the three American Grand Prix drivers present, Phil Hill, Masten Gregory, and Harry Schell) did not like to be drawn into a race like this one, where courage was more important than skill—the only substantial difference between the various drivers. It is too dangerous.
And finally, the Europeans saw that the cards were stacked overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In sheer power and speed, all that counted at Monza, their cars could not match the Americans', and so there was really no point in competing at all.
This point seemed to escape the Americans entirely; they seemed to feel that their superiority was something that could not be proved often enough.
The two camps, which should have had so much in common, simply did not understand each other.
Race day dawned warm and sunny. At the drivers' meeting Masten Gregory said to Bryan: "I'll watch out for you in my mirror, Jim, and let you pass any time. Where do you want to pass, high or low?"
"Masten," said Bryan, "it don't make a damn to me what you do. I'll go by you so fast it won't make any difference at all."
Phil Hill, who had just won at Le Mans, was to drive the smaller (3 liter) of the two Ferraris. His suspension had just been changed, he had not tested it, and he was worried about being able to hold the car on the banking at such speeds. Suppose it went out of control?
"If you feel that way," I said to him, "why are you going to drive it?"
He shrugged. "I'm an up-and-coming young driver," he responded. "This is just something you have to do when you're an up-and-coming young driver."
Luigi Musso, driving for Italy in Italy, had blasted around in the big Ferrari (4.2 liters) at 174.67 miles per hour, fastest of the qualifying speeds. The car was bounding all over on the banking, and Musso stayed in it only because he was strapped down. Italy, and perhaps Musso, were elated. But all knew that the bounding Ferrari would need at least one tire change per heat, and could not challenge the Indy cars.
Fangio was there. He had been announced as driver of an Indy car, a Dean Van Lines Special, and had qualified it. But all week it had been whispered around the paddock and the press room that Fangio had no intention of racing, that he was being u
sed by the organizers to lure a crowd. Promoters in Europe often use such tactics, lying to fans for weeks in advance. This is something that rarely happens in America, where public opinion could ruin a promoter overnight. But in Europe (and Italy in particular), promoters laugh at public opinion and lie to prospective fans all the time. What is hard to comprehend, however, is why Fangio, an honorable and universally admired man, should be party to such a swindle, if swindle it was. In any case, it was rumored he wouldn't race, and he didn't. His car, minus its cowling, was pushed to the start in order to be eligible for a later heat, then mechanics went to work on its mysteriously split pistons. The same thing happened at the start of heat two. For heat three Fangio did two laps, both of them slowly, while reaching down into the cockpit as if fiddling with a stuck pedal. Then he retired.
During one of the intermissions I asked the people working on the car whether the pistons were indeed cracked, mentioning the rumors I had heard.
"Fangio wants to race so bad he can taste it," I was told. "He's sick about what has happened. He offered the mechanics five thousand dollars out of his own pocket if they got the car ready and he won with it."
The Americans, particularly Bryan, were frank enough in other statements about the European drivers, so there was no reason to hold back the truth, however ugly, here. I did not know what to think.
The race was won by Jim Rathmann, driving a Zink Leader Card Special, at 167 miles an hour, making this the fastest car race in the history of the world. It was the only distinction it had.
Rathmann won all three 63-lap heats. He wore an orange helmet and drove an orange car and he flashed past the pits every 55 seconds. Except for Musso in the beginning, no one challenged him. Musso's Ferrari was really fast, and once Musso passed Rathmann by driving through on the inside, inches from the pit wall, sending up a cloud of sand and dust. The crowd loved this, and so did the most hardened American Indy fans. When Musso was killed the following week, everybody had a good word to say for him.
CARS AT SPEED - Grand Prix's Golden Age Page 24