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This “Ferrari” featurette goes into depth about the most famous Italian automobile race of all time known as “The Mille Miglia” spanning 1,000 miles. Check it out.
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:09 You're going broke.
00:10 So what do I do?
00:12 Win the Mille Miglia, Enzo.
00:13 Or you are out of business.
00:17 1,000 miles across bad roads with sheep and dogs,
00:20 anything can happen.
00:22 We have to win the Mille Miglia, then orders for sports
00:24 cars will follow.
00:26 Everyone's eye will be on it.
00:29 Only one team will win.
00:32 Make sure it's you.
00:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:38 The most famous race in Italy was the Mille Miglia.
00:43 I'm entering five cars, Collins, La Rufi, De Portago,
00:46 Von Trips, Jean de Biel.
00:49 The Mille Miglia was 1,000 mile race across open roads,
00:52 through mountains, through towns, through Vena,
00:55 the outskirts of Rome.
00:58 Back through Bologna all the way to Brescia in the north
01:01 where it began.
01:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:13 I've always loved this era in motorsports.
01:15 It's the most romantic, probably the most tragic and dangerous
01:18 period.
01:19 Pre-war up until the '50s and the jet age,
01:22 now we're accustomed to seeing big crashes
01:25 and drivers walking away.
01:27 In that era, they didn't.
01:29 And if they made a mistake, it was usually deadly.
01:32 [ENGINE REVVING]
01:36 This is an era in which the cars, particularly the Ferraris,
01:40 made a tremendous amount of power.
01:43 Everything in the Ferraris was cutting edge,
01:45 but the racing of the period was lethally dangerous.
01:50 The mortality rate of the spring team from '56 to '58
01:53 is about 50%.
01:56 So what possesses these men in the prime of their life
02:01 to do something like this?
02:04 Make no mistake, all of us are racers, or have been.
02:07 We all are certain it will never happen to be.
02:10 The answer is belief that it's never going to happen to me.
02:14 And my friend is killed.
02:16 I give up racing forever on Monday.
02:18 I'm back racing by Sunday.
02:20 But the addiction puts you right back in that seat.
02:23 We all know it's a deadly passion.
02:25 Our terrible joy.
02:26 It's a meditation, I think, in many ways,
02:33 because the speed is intense and focus required.
02:36 You don't really think about anything else.
02:38 So there's a cleansing process of the mind
02:41 where you don't listen to all the voices in your head.
02:45 There's potential dangers at every single turn.
02:49 OK, go for it!
02:50 There's an unknown that could happen at any moment.
02:53 But how in the midst of someone who is doing something
02:56 incredibly dangerous do you stay myoptically focused
03:00 on what you're trying to accomplish?
03:02 One race 1,000 miles across open roads
03:08 will determine some, not all, of the issues
03:11 that are colliding in these three months of 1957.
03:16 (car engine revving)