A Lesson In History — Tazio Nuvolari

Some claimed Tazio Nuvolari negotiated a pact with the devil that endowed him with his otherworldly talent in a race car.

Italian racing ace Achille Varzi, Nuvolari’s foremost rival, believed so, and the events of the 1930 Mille Miglia reinforced his belief. Varzi seemed on his way to an unchallenged win. He regularly monitored his rearview mirror for headlights in the tar-black night. Nothing. Then, unexpectedly, out of the gloom, the roar of an engine.

Nuvolari.

To conceal his presence, Nuvolari had charged through the night over treacherous, twisting mountain roads with his headlights off. He pulled alongside the astounded Varzi, gave him a wave, and sped to victory.

At Monte Carlo in 1932, a car’s blown engine soaked an infamously challenging corner with oil. The first five cars on the scene crashed. Nuvolari barged in, blipped the throttle once, and fishtailed through the carnage unharmed. He won.

He ran Northern Ireland’s demanding Tourist Trophy in 1933 and dominated the race in his MG. Asked afterward about the MG’s notoriously inadequate brakes, Nuvolari shrugged and said, “No problem. I didn’t use them that much.”

Nuvolari was just as incredible on two wheels. His first racing experience came on motorcycles, introduced to them by his uncle, a Bianchi dealer near Nuvolari’s Mantuan, Italy home.

WWI interrupted his budding career. But after the conflict, he resumed his winning efforts, twice riding to the Italian National Championship.

He once crashed during practice for the Monza Grand Prix, breaking both legs. Doctors informed him it would be a month before he could walk, longer before he could ride again.

He arrived on race morning with his legs in casts and insisted his mechanics strap him to his motorcycle. Nuvolari secured they held him upright until he roared off. He won.

Racing for a time, both motorcycles and cars, Nuvolari switched solely to four wheels in 1931. He brought with him a heretofore unseen style. He didn’t drive the car through the corners, he hurled it. Enzo Ferrari, another believer in Nuvolari’s deal with the devil myth, insisted he invented the four-wheel drift.

Of his numerous seemingly supernatural accomplishments, perhaps his most momentous was at the Nurburgring for the 1935 German Grand Prix.

Hitler was in power, spouting his twisted, “Master Race” rhetoric. He dumped millions of Reichsmarks into the German auto industry and used racing as a propaganda tool.

Benefiting from those resources, Mercedes and Auto Union designed and built the most advanced, powerful race cars on the planet. They dominated Grand Prix racing. Mercedes entered five cars for the Nurburgring race, Auto Union four.

Nationalistic emotions ran at a fever pitch as 300,000 jammed the 14.1-miles-long, 174-turn course on a drizzly, foggy July 28. It was the most important race on the European racing calendar, and the festive throng hungered to see a German car beat the best the world had to offer.

Nuvolari was in a four-year-old Alfa Romeo, entered by Enzo Ferrari’s Scuderia Ferrari team. The Grand Prix started in pouring rain, and Manfred Von Brauchitsch, whose uncle was a Field Marshall in the German army, dominated in his Mercedes W25B.

By the ninth lap of the 22-lap event, Nuvolari lagged two minutes behind. Then, suddenly, as if possessed, he lapped faster and faster. He turned the first 11-minute lap at the Nurburgring while gobbling huge amounts of time off the lead.

He trimmed the advantage to one minute. Then 33 seconds. On the final circuit, he was 30 seconds behind. With a half lap left, Nuvolari pulled within 23 seconds. Another two miles, the lead was 10 seconds.

As they raced toward the finish line, Nuvolari could see Von Brauchitsch 200 yards ahead. Nearly at the checker, Von Brauchitsch’s overworked rear tire shredded, and Nuvolari raced on for the win.

Silence fell over the giant crowd, followed by a mournful moan. Nazi officials, already raising the Swastika emblazoned Nazi flag in anticipation of honoring a victorious German car and driver, stood stunned.

Other officials fled the track immediately, faced with the task of reporting to Hitler, who’d taken an active interest in the event.

Race organizers, so convinced a German would be victorious, struggled for 30 minutes to dig out a recording of the Italian National Anthem for the winner’s presentation.

Nuvolari died in 1953. His gravesite inscription reads, “You will race even faster along the roads of heaven.”

And the pact with the devil? No doubt he confronted Satan and haggled his way out of it.