Racer Biography. Tazio Nuvolari

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Tazio Nuvolari grew up near the town of Mantua in Italy in the year 1892, and developed a passion for motor cars at a very early age. His uncle was the primary influence in this context, who sold Bianchi vehicles. Nuvolari’s early passion translated into him opting for the position of driver for the national army services. By 28, he had begun racing motorcycles competitively. His dedicated efforts towards motorsports were noticed by the Bianchi team; under the aegis of the team he became a champion.

Nuvolari’s enthusiastic start with motorcar racing began in the year of 1924, when he and another great Italian racer Achille Varzi, formed a team. Nuvolari’s talents even made Varzi jealous, as the former began defeating him in various races. Varzi left Nuvolari’s Bianchi team, as a result of this, and went over to Alfa Romeo. Of course, Alfa was much better positioned as a race car at that moment, because of superior engineering and technology, and it was now Varzi who began winning. However, Nuvolari’s passion and talent interested Alfa Romeo a great deal, and they could no longer ignore the ‘Flying Mantuan’ (Nuvolari’s nickname).

When Nuvolari signed up for Alfa Romeo, in 1928, he found himself teammates with Varzi yet again. This brought a new lease of life to the existing rivalry between him and Varzi, and was epitomized in the race of Mile Miglia, 1930. The Mile Miglia was a test of both endurance and skill, and was long race designed through the Italian countryside. Nuvolari saw this as an opportunity to defeat Varzi via an ingenious plan. When he began trailing Varzi, who was leading the race, he simply switched off his headlights, and used Varzi’s one as his guiding light. As they approached the finish line, he switched on his lights, and sped past Varzi, who up till that point of time had no clue of Nuvolari’s existence behind him. This maneuver cost Varzi a defeat, at the hands of the ingenious Nuvolari, who undoubtedly had strong faith in Varzi’s driving.

Throughout the next 10 years Nuvolari’s success and fame grew rapidly, and in the motorsports fraternity he was hailed as a living legend. A young and talented mechanic, going by the name of Enzo Ferrari, was for some time Nuvolari’s mechanic, with Enzo holding Nuvolari as his ideal. In 1935, Nuvolari wanted to drive with the Auto Union team, which was lacking talented drivers, but they were pressurized by Varzi, Nuvolari’s arch rival by now, to leave him out of the team. Still, when the 1935 Nürburgring race was driven by Nuvolari in a car that was considered far worse than the German Mercedes; to the utter dismay of the Germans watching the race, Nuvolari won it.

Throughout his career, Nuvolari displayed immense passion for racing, which others could have even termed as insanity. Once again, in the year 1936, this ‘insanity’ was exhibited when Nuvolari met with a terrible accident while in practice. He was taken to a hospital in Tripoli but he managed to escape from the same, and came back to race.

Nuvolari spent a total of 30 years as a motor car racer, with an illustrious race career possible only for such a legend. Only during the World War II did the flying Mantuan come to a halt, but he was soon back to the tracks at the age of 53 after the war. He continued to win even at this age.
Finally, on August 11th, in the year 1953, the great racecar genius succumbed to a paralyzing stroke and died. Nuvolari has three sports cars named after him, the Alfa Romeo Nuvola, Audi Nuvolari Quattro, and the EAM Nuvolari S1. To this day the great Nuvolari continues to inspire aspiring drivers and of course, the masses.

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