As I arrived in Brescia, it's clear the Mille Miglia is only a week away, as the city workers begin preparing an ancient city, built in 753AD, for the onslaught of cars, competitors, crews and spectators.
Jay Leno driving for Jaguar |
It is an event many enthusiasts have on their bucket lists, but these days entry is limited to those with cash; the right cars; the clout and preferably a celebrity crew-member as driver or navigator.
My good friend Richard Charlesworth, recently retired from Bentley Motors, has participated many times, so I asked him for a brief description of his memories ......
Depending on your starting number, the cars
begin leaving at about 2.30 pm Friday. In the early days, your car number denoted your
Start Time; so #722 left at 07:22h.
The first leg is from Brescia to Padova,
and that’s the time when the driver and the navigator begin to work out if they
can stand each other for three days, and will finish the event with a
friendship intact!
If the weather is fine, there can be no
better site for a car aficionado than the competing vehicles lined up in
Brescia’s Piazza Della Loggia.
Of course if it’s wet it can be miserable,
especially if you’re in a grand old Bentley minus a roof! I’ve been in a few
events when it has rained for the whole rally.
The halfway point is Rome, and time to
re-assess the rally so far. The Mille Miglia Storico is called a ‘Regularity
Trial’ with special timed stages, but the navigation can be tricky. I’m not
sure if that’s because of the well-known Italian brand of organized chaos; the
intentional traps the organisers build in to the route instructions; or the
fact that some of the navigators have no previous experience, so for them it’s
a baptism of fire.
The return leg to Brescia is where everyone
seems to get serious, because they’ve all assessed their position in the field
in Rome, so they all seem to say ‘now, let’s get down to business’ and often
you will see some pretty hairy driving. Even in very dangerous places like the Futa Pass.
Richard driving the 'Blower' through Sienna |
My favourite section of the rally is when
we drive through the walled city of Siena, but really, the big thrill is
driving the Bentleys from our historic collection in Crewe.
I have driven all of our preserved and
famous cars, the 1920 3 Litre ‘EXP2’, the 1930 4 ½ Litre ‘Blower’ and the
beautiful 1954 R Type Continental, and I think I can say that my favourite is
the 1929 4 ½ Litre Supercharged ‘Blower’ Team Car (UU5872).
This is the car that raced at Le Mans in
1930, and was entered for the Mille Miglia that year, but ultimately did not participate.
My good friend Emanuele Bedetti provides us
with excellent preparation for the Mille. He is not only an enthusiast,
especially for Bentley, but he is widely experienced at the event, and we rely on him for
helping us through the complex registration process. In addition we get a lot of help preparing the cars from our team at Crewe.
Even as an ‘Evento Storico’ and no longer
run as a race, a lot of entrants get very intense about participation, and some
of the high performance cars provide the chance to drive on fantastic Italian
roads at some very high speeds.
You cannot enter just ‘any’ car in the
Mille Miglia, the event is limited to cars built between 1927 and 1957 and are
only accepted by the organisers because they are ‘of the type’ which would have
taken part during the glory years. In Bentley’s case, only the 4 ½ Litre
Supercharged ‘Blower’ from 1929-30 and the Derby-built 3 ½ Litre from 1933-38
are eligible.
The regularity stages, where the whole convoy stops and has
to drive for specific distances at pre-agreed - and very specific - speeds (say
480 metres at 43.5kph).
Get it wrong and you’re deducted points, and it’s these
points combined with signing in at each of the pre-assigned control points at
the allotted time that define your position in the event. So being able to
operate a stopwatch, or more accurately 4 or 5 stopwatches at the same
time, is something of a pre-requisite for Mille Miglia success.
After you’ve completed the four days of frustration,
confusion, Italian bureaucracy, speed, tiredness, joy and exhilaration it’s time to reflect
on an event which could only happen in Italy.
The Italians, for all their
so-called ‘cultural idiosyncrasies’ are passionate, warm, friendly, welcoming,
and supportive of anything which involves a ‘Bella Machina’; or in the case of
the Mille Miglia around 400 cars.
Richard Charlesworth
I have read your article, it is very informative and helpful for me.I admire the valuable information you offer in your articles. Thanks for posting it.. famous phone number
ReplyDelete