6/9/14

THE RING AND ITS RINGMASTERS

We’ve had our perilous places. The “High Banks” (or “The Hills”) come to mind – Salem, Winchester, Dayton, those fearsomely steep Midwest half-miles. Back in the day, the three were required steps up the ladder to a national driving title, but even so, some among the gutsiest open-wheelers ever would refuse to sign in.

And, back East, there was the tiny 1/6th-mile Nutley Velodrome, where Midget wheelmen taunted fate in 1938 on the unthinkably demanding 45-degree banking. So many died there that the facility went quiet before the end of the next season.

Meanwhile, motorsport in Europe has traditionally been characterized by road courses, so fundamentally different from American ovals. By the mid-70s, the FIA had approved over 100 European circuits for racing, but a few of them stood out, unique for their intensity, danger, and popularity. High among them has been a course in Nürburg, Germany, 40 miles from Cologne.

The Nürburgring was built in the late 1920s, originally winding 14 miles around the Eifel Mountains for both motorcycle and automotive contests. It was grueling, involving 170 turns per lap, with the elevation varying a full 1,000 feet.

The original motivation for the enormous project was to create jobs for locals, a place to test cars for the developing German auto industry, and a facility to be admired by racers worldwide.

Since the beginning, the Ring has offered up sanctioned racing as well as access to driving enthusiasts on weekends to test their limits with no oncoming traffic or speed limitations. Some of the layout’s early eccentricities were smoothed out, but, still, it has been lethal from the start. Over 200 people have lost their lives on the twisting course. In 1968, after a courageous run through forest, rain, and fog to win the 1968 German Grand Prix, Jackie Stewart labeled the Ring “Green Hell,” and the name stuck.

“Green Hell” (Photo Credit – from World of Speed/Nurburgring)

Precious few drivers are imbued with the ultimate skill, strength, and bravery required the master the place. Before the War, the most noted of these “Ringmasters” were Rudolf Caracciola, Bernd Rosemeyer, and Tazio Nuvolari. In 1935, Tazio Nuvolari won the German Grand Prix at Nürburg with an astonishing performance amid high geo-political drama.

By the mid-1930s, like so much of the European continent, Nürburg was consumed by the darkness of Third Reich imperialism. Hitler, obsessed with the prestige of German victory on the motorsports battleground, gave lush subsidies to companies such as Mercedes and Auto Union to demonstrate superiority.

Nuvolari, the “Flying Mantuan,” was an apolitical, five-foot, two-inch Italian, subdued in life style, but Herculean in a race car. He was tremendously admired by 1935 but considered an underdog at the Ring. He was there with an Alfa Romeo P3, giving up over 100 horsepower to each of the nine throaty Auto Union and Mercedes entries.

Nuvolari was devoted to his wife, Carolina Perina, and their two boys, both of whom pre-deceased their parents. In his race car, he was wild, often beating the sides of the cockpit with one hand as he executed full tilt, four-wheel broadslides. From RACING CARS, by Paul Hamlyn. (Central Press Photos)

Three-hundred thousand spectators watched as Manfred von Brauchitsch motored proudly away in his Mercedes, already sniffing the sweet scent of victory. Meanwhile, the Mantuan struggled, first with a poor start and then a badly botched pit stop. But then he came on, pushing the car to its limit. With one lap to go, Nuvolari still had 35 seconds to make up – which he did, totally stunning the German High Command. So sure they were of winning, they had only brought music for the German national anthem to be played in Victory Circle. And the wreath, destined, they thought, for the shoulders of one of their beefier German drivers, dwarfed the diminutive Italian who had just achieved what history now calls “the Impossible Win.”

After the War, as racing regained its more balanced footing, the grandest Ringmasters were Alberto Ascari, Juan-Manuel Fangio, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Sir Stirling Moss. Like Nuvolari’s, Moss’s most sensational drive may have been through those Eifel Mountains.

In 1961, Enzo Ferrari thought he’d be all set. New F1 rules called for smaller 1.5-litre engines, so Ferrari plunked a powerful but lightweight V-6 in the back of his #156 “Sharknose” team cars. Phil Hill, hometowner Wolfgang von Trips, and newcomer Giancarlo Baghetti had all won in them earlier in the season when they arrived in Nürburg. Meanwhile, Stirling Moss appeared with a modest Climax four-cylinder – independently underfunded and overweight.