I Can Close My Eyes (The Joys and Sorrows of Motor Racing)

　

I can close my eyes and see an elderly Italian couple sitting in the infield grandstand at the exit of 2^nd Lesmo at Monza. It’s Friday afternoon when all the grandstands are free and the atmosphere is fantastic. The couple is well dressed, he in a softly checked sport coat, tan slacks, a doeskin vest, white shirt, and necktie, she is a blue dress, heels and a pillbox hat. They are reserved and quiet until one of the Ferraris rolls slowly by on a warm up lap. Then they both applaud politely. At the time I didn’t speak enough Italian to find out who they were. They were old enough to have been at the track in the immediate postwar era and have seen Nuvolari, Fangio, Ascari and all the other heroes of the time. Wonder if they did.

　

　

I can close my eyes and see the exit of the Tamburello corner at the racetrack at Imola. My wife and I had traveled from the West Coast to Paris, spent the night and taken the train Paris-Milan, then Milan-Bologna. We arrived on Saturday afternoon. An Italian friend had arraigned race tickets and hotel reservations, we checked in to the hotel, returned to the train station and bought open r/t tickets to Imola the next day. Sunday is a wonderful late spring day in central Italy. We arrive at the track at 10:00 AM or so. Our seats are in the Tribune Verde on the back side of the track. The sun is shining, it’s probably 80F, the crowd are normal Italians, people with ice chests and red shirts, Ferrari banners and Ferrari caps. Imola is ground zero for Ferrari F1 fans. The track is the closest F1 venue to the factory and the locals are all Tifosi. Across the track from the grandstand called Tribune Verde is a small group of Brazilians, they have a Brazilian flag on a long pole and a good natured dialog begins. The infield fence is packed with racefans. The guy with the flag moves up and down behind the fence, no one on our side of the track can see him, every so often he raises the flag and begins to wave it back and forth, as soon as the Italians on our side of the track spot the Brazilian flag they erupt into a chorus of boos’ and Italian imprecations. When the noise reaches a certain level the flag disappears and the crowd quiets. Then the flagbearer moves 30 feet or so, waits a few minutes and repeats the process. Everyone is laughing, cheering and having a good time. Soon enough some of the Italians decide to turn the tables. Shortly after the flag disappears a group on our side of the track stands and begins waving their flags, chanting, Ferrari, Ferrari. The Brazilian has perfect timing, at exactly the right moment he raises his flag and all the Brazilians begin chanting the name of their hero driver Ayrton Senna. “Senna, Senna, Senna,” All the people in two hundred feet of grandstand are laughing and chanting. Of course if you are an F1 fan by now you’ve figured out that it was 1994 and events in the race changed F1 forever.

I can close my eyes and see the exit of the Tamburello corner.

It’s a sweeping lefthander at the end of the front straight taken at very high speed, the sort of corner that the great drivers really relish because doing it right is dangerous and quickly separates the great from the good. Very few average or bad drivers ever get the chance to drive an F1 car. Senna is leading a few laps into the race, right on his tail is the budding German driver Michael Schumacher. The safety car comes out due to a pit accident, when the race resumes Senna begins to pull away. His Williams-Renault is clearly faster than the rest of the field. At the exit of the Tamburello he for some reason still unexplained leaves the track and slides nose first into the retaining wall at probably 130mph. It seems to take forever for the parts that come off the car on impact to quit falling. The crash really doesn’t look as bad as others I’ve seen. I am watching through my telephoto lens expecting Senna to climb out and wave to the crowd or at worst to be put on a stretcher and taken away in the ambulance. The chassis doesn’t appear to be compromised but unfortunately the right front wheel detaches, flies back toward the driver and one of the suspension components punctures his helmet. The F1 medical unit arrives in seconds. Senna is taken by helicopter to one of the best hospitals in the world but his injuries are fatal. Michael Schumacher goes on to win the race. In the next years he sets every significant F1 record and become seven time F1 Champion, twice for Benneton and five times for Ferrari. In Sao Paolo Brazil a 15 year old girl commits suicide. All Brazil mourns.

Personal note: The year before (1993) our son went to Europe. He attended two F1 races, the first at Spa in Belgium and the second two weeks later at Monza. The same friend who got us out tickets to Imola got my son a pit pass for the GP at Monza. Now you must understand that we are pretty much ordinary folks, and getting a pit pass to a GP is no mean task. So when my son had a chance to talk with several of the drivers and get close to the cars it was a very moving experience for him. He describes a five minute conversation with Ayrton Senna. Senna spoke with my son as an equal, My son said it was like talking to a good friend and it’s a moment he treasures above most things in life.

Paris Is

Paris is a lot of things. It’s cool grays and pastels. It’s the beautiful textures of sandstone and granite, it’s the Eifel Tower and the Champs Elyse. It’s bright colored restaurant awnings and ebullient French waiters and little restaurants’ that you stumble into totally by accident where the whole place shakes when the Metro goes right under where you are sitting. And the food is ethereal and the waitress looks like somebody you would see at Denny’s . It’s a pretty French girl running down the Boulevard Haussmann in a Paris drizzle with a newspaper over her head and every man on the street craning his neck to watch her because she has great legs. But most of all it’s a litmus test. The things that make Paris and the French so endearing and make me get tears in my eyes whenever I think about going there annoy a lot of people. I have friends who go there and return shrugging their shoulders. Paris didn’t take. They shouldn’t go there. They should go to Las Vegas or somewhere. They should go to North Dakota to visit the family. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. They won’t take the time to figure out the Metro and the RER. They’ll never go to Saint Chappell and see 270 degrees of the most beautiful stained glass in the world light up in the sunlight. Because the line was too long. Really. Then I have friends who go there and send e-mails saying Woo-Woo. Just Woo-Woo. Paris has a history, it has a feeling unlike any other city I’ve ever seen. Fourteen million people live there. Parts of it are dangerous and riding the Metro late at night is not going to be a habit for me. But I don’t want to know when I’ve made my last visit. And having been to a lot of other cities Paris is the only one I feel that way about. Rome, we have wonderful friends there, ditto Milan, special places and special people but we go to see the people not the places. Ahh, then there is Paris. We have special friends there as well, you can’t imagine how special but if they weren’t there (God forbid) we’d still go there. We’d stay in the Concortel in the Rue Pasquier, I’d pet Elton the Hotel dog every morning and we’d go out for another adventure. I can’t think of another city I feel the same way about.

My Interior Stadium

In one of his baseball books Roger Angell titled a chapter The Interior Stadium. The Interior Stadium was about all those images you carry around in your memory. Whenever you want to you can pull them up and replay them. It's like your own private movie theater. I'm a fan of motor racing, travel, food, wine, baseball and most of all the friends we've made in almost fifty years of married life. I'm going to write down as many of  those memories I can remember and try to bring them to life for anyone else who wants to read them. I hope you enjoy and come back.