Word: nuvolari
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...major auto races, Nuvolari won 72, could blame most of his defeats on car failure. He took every big European race at least once-the Grand Prix, Le Mans, the Mille Miglia. Superstitious, he liked always to have a hunchback friend nearby when he raced, for good luck. He always wore the same yellow sweater, blue pants and tricolored scarf. Italians said of Nuvolari, as they had long before said of their spellbinding violinist, Paganini. that he had "a pact with the devil." This belief was strongly supported by Nuvolari's chief European rival, Achille Varzi...
...Nuvolari's unearthly skill sometimes surpassed other drivers' understanding, though they acknowledged him as the greatest racer of all. At Monte Carlo's 1935 Grand Prix, heavy rains swept the racing route. A car's oil line broke in the middle of an already slippery S curve. The five cars following piled up and littered the road like tank barriers. Next came Nuvolari. In a few seconds, at high speed, he power-slid and threaded his way across the slick and between the crashed cars with only millimeters to spare, without touching...
...Country. In 1936, Nuvolari went to America and casually won the Vanderbilt Cup race, beating the U.S.'s Wilbur Shaw and Mauri Rose, later three-time Indianapolis champions. But time, which Tazio had always flouted, was catching up with him. After World War II, which he spent in Mantua laid low by tuberculosis, he attempted a comeback. Trying for his third Mille Miglia victory in 1948. he was a lonely, ill man. He kept the lead, despite the progressive loss of his Ferrari's bumpers, hood, mudguards and seat cushions. With little more left than its wheels...
Once he had said: "Without a motor under my feet, it's hard to face death." Last year he had a stroke that partly paralyzed him. Last week, after another stroke, Tazio Nuvolari, 61, finally met death, but not the way he had always wanted it. He died...
...mile-long funeral procession at Mantua, Nuvolari's bier rested on a flag-draped car chassis, pushed by some of modern racing's greatest names-Alberto Ascari, Luigi Villoresi, Juan Fangio. They buried II Maestro's scarred body, its bones marred by countless fractures, in his gay racing togs, his favorite detachable steering wheel at his side...