I was reluctant to find him at a café in Milan. Why? For the simple reason that it seemed too cliché for me. It made me uncomfortable. Now, I found myself scanning around for an older gentleman probably looking all debonair and leisurely. My eyes caught something. It was a long shot but I noticed that gentleman with redness present on the bridge of the nose and approached. I didn’t care if I got it wrong.
“Siete Juan Manuel?”
“Sí, sí lo soy. Podés dejar el italiano.” Jovially, he let me know that he was the guy I was looking for, and that we could speak in Spanish. He took the last sip of his coffee and, inverting the cup, dropped a couple of Euros below it resembling a game of walnut shells.
“How did you recognize me?” he asked.
“I didn’t know. I guessed by the red mark on the bridge of your nose.”
“Yeah, we used heavy rubber goggles in my days. Sometimes, after a long race, I preferred to just leave them on, taking them off was just too painful. It’s been years and I still carry the scars of my trade. Every trade has them.”
It struck me that he called auto racing a trade. For some reason it seemed to me the same as saying that Pelé worked for Santos or Brazil. But upon further inspection, it can’t be denied that his trade was entertainment–at speeds well north of 100 mph. Indeed, the horseless carriage had come a long way—a dangerously long way. It was an occupational hazard where the hazard was the occupation.
We got on with our trip but not without Juan Manuel swatting some of the cigarette smoke lingering before him from the men sitting nearby; “That is such a dangerous habit.” This came from a man who would, on our way from Milan to Monza, relate stories such as Le Mans ’55 and racers opting against seat belts claiming that it was best to be thrown from the car than condemned within it. Car racing was (and is) dangerous, somehow similar to putting your head in an alligator’s mouth with the slight difference that you put your whole body in the potentially lethal machine.
Despite looking forward to having ‘The Greatest Driver of all Time’ motor us to Monza, he tossed the keys and naturally, I took a special liking to driving his Alfa.
British publication pressed well before the Formula 1 era of Michael Schumacher who, in addition to Eyrton Senna of Brasil, is considered to dispute this assertion of supremacy.
Upon noticing my admiration he thought he should say: “I started racing with Fords and Chevrolets in Argentina. But just like other things (he flashed a wink) the first isn’t necessarily the best.” His first Grand Prix victory came in an Alfetta 158 in Monaco. I guess that if we are going to keep the parallels between cars and women, for El Maestro, the Alfa Romeo was that woman who was just right. The one that felt like hands clasped tight. The woman who you left or that left you for whatever reason, but the one you would always return to; the lady you would always be delighted to find at some place to sit and catch up–far from places you are familiar with. Some men decline these encounters with the past, but it seemed that Juan Manuel couldn’t resist, and today, despite frequent rendezvous with Ferrari, Maserati and Mercedes, he had returned to his beloved Alfa.
“Well, you know that Monza is famous for two things: the Autodromo and one of The Nails” he said. I could feel him waiting for me to ask him about ‘The nail’ as I was sure that he knew I was well aware of the former.
I amused him, “So, what is this Nail…?”
“It is one of the nails of The Crucifixion. You know…THE Crucifixion. It is in the Iron Crown of Lombardy in the Cathedral of Monza, built under divine mandate by Theodelinda.” He added, “The other, the Autodromo, is my cathedral…but you already know this.” To this I nodded and just let him assume that I knew who Theodelinda was. You could tell that Milan and Monza were cities where he spent some time. He knew them quite well and, generally speaking, had some affinity for the two. It was in Monza that Juan Manuel, El Chueco, would suffer a career threatening accident that would put him off the track in ’52.
“I have driven into Monza so many times,” he said “but never like the time I drove all the way from Paris because I missed my flight. I drove through the night and I arrived at the Autodromo with less than an hour to spare. I soiled my shifting royally and ended up flipping the car and flopping between life and death after breaking a few key body parts.”
With this, he rubbed his neck where a drop of sweat now ran. It is pleasant in Northern Italy around September. Gone were the hot days of July. Juan also took the time during the short drive to Monza to talk about the years where it all began–his love for racing that is. Racing, as he put it, was just a way to test what he had done with his hands the day before. He was as much a mechanic as he was a race car pilot, and took pride in both. He was known to give part of his earnings to his mechanic crew. Once, he complained about ‘terrible vibrations’ in his car once it reached high speeds. Given his generosity, the next day, the vibrations were gone. Did Fangio have a great crew? No, rather, he had a very crafty one. Overnight, lacking answers for the vibrations, the mechanics simply removed Fangio’s number from his car and placed it on his teammate’s car, which lacked the shaking.
Juan Manuel also shared stories from his days racing American-made cars from Buenos Aires, through rugged terrain, all the way to Lima, Peru and back. Through thousands of miles, all that was allowed by race organizers were perhaps a co-driver and a tool box. Repairs had to be done on the spot and by your lonesome. If you think it is hard changing a tire on the side of the road, imagine how it must be when the tire blows while you are on an incline on a dirt road in the Andes. He claimed that he once lost some lug nuts down a cliff when changing a tire and had to replace these with the ones from the other tires in order to continue the race. Even when the car presented no troubles on its own, these races had no shortage of challenges. On another occasion, the foodstuffs that had been placed on the exhaust manifold for ‘convenient heating’, attracted local wildlife which tore its way through the distributor cables. Luckily, these items were considered indispensable, and had replacements readily available.
“In retrospect, it was terribly dangerous. My friend and co-driver Daniel died in Peru when I skidded off the road.” He added.
Monza is a far cry from the metropolitan pace of Milan. It is a medieval town complete with all the trappings of old; cathedrals, squares, chapels, domes, cobble stones and wrought iron. Shortly after arriving, I began looking for a place to park near the Duomo Di Monza. Of course, that was unnecessary. Juan Manuel had a better idea, and the idea rode on the back of an ‘amico’. He got off the car a block away, and pointing his finger and wagging his hand to and fro, showed me where to park. He said that if anyone recognized the car and asked about him at the shop, to simply explain that he had lent it to me and said that I could park there. He later clarified that if his old race buddies actually saw him, we would have been obligated to have an extended lunch, a coffee and the habitual conversation about the old days, hours would race right by. We had things to do.
I am a reporter. Moreover, I am a sports writer. My mind is naturally a repository of sports facts and figures. I can recite batting averages of major and minor league players as well as group winners and runner-ups for the past 12 World Cups. I drop the names of winning jockey and horse combos from Kentucky, Preakness and Belmont, going back to Sir Barton as quickly as the fall of what drops from the south end of a north bound stallion. Sometimes, I even remember the wind speed and temperature on race day.
What was I doing in Monza? I was chosen amongst 23 of my colleagues (26 if you count the interns) to cover the Formula 1 Santander Gran Premio d’Italia 2010. This year marks the 60th anniversary of Juan Manuel Fangio’s first Grand Prix victory in Monaco on May of 1950. I chose to title my piece: Following Fangio. We sat on a park bench and thus the interview begins.
I: Juan Manuel Fangio, how does it feel to be back in Monza?
JMF: Monza is bittersweet. In ’51 I won my first championship, but I also lost here to Farina. And, as I told you earlier, I almost lost my life here in Italy, where my parents were born.
I: Your first of five.
JMF: That’s right. I guess five is a good number. You have five fingers on your hand, so, had I won six, I would have needed both hands to count (laughs).
I: What was the oddest moment in your racing career?
JMF: Being kidnapped by young rebels in Havana in ’58. That year also saw my retirement in France a couple of months later, so we can call it a rather eventful year.
I: Rebels in Havana! What?!
JMF: Look, a lot has been written about that episode. You can read into it if you’d like. What struck me about the whole incident was that my beliefs were strengthened in those few days. Whether my captors believed that what they were doing in that particular moment was right or wrong is not the ultimate lesson here. They, you or me, it matters not. We all strive, and must strive to be better every day of our lives. What we do should be for that end, as we can always be better upon recognizing our shortcomings. We must realize where we are, and where we are about to go.
As he spoke these words, something caught his eye and without notice, he stood up and began walking towards a fountain. Thinking that this might have been a noteworthy moment, I got up and followed him. Arriving at the fountain he curved behind it and disappeared from sight. I hurried my pace so as to not lose him. His frame weaving quickly, left and right through corridors and cars parked on the street, made it hard to keep up. Finally he looks back and prompts me to follow as if I hadn’t already been doing so. He turns a corner and once again leaves my sight. As I round the corner I see a sculpture of a race car with its driver standing next to it. I don’t see Juan Manuel but I’m sure that he must be close by. I approach the sculpture which has flowers strewn about it and I read its plaque. On it, beside the name Juan Manuel Fangio, were hyphenated dates. These dates read: 24th of June, 1911 – 17th of July, 1995. Balcarce, Argentina.
A woman next to me with a child said, “Some of the drivers have already been arriving to Monza and they have come to leave flowers. They all follow Fangio you know.”
I replied: “Yes, apparently we all do.”
***
The preceding Story from the PlanIt is in part factual and in part dramatized. It is, nonetheless, a tribute to a notable sports figure and a hero in his homeland and abroad. However, it is also a tribute to an upcoming event: The Formula 1 Gran Prix in Monza, Italy. Do you think that you can write a similar short story? We invite you to become a PlanItary and submit your story. Try out your literary legs! The guidelines are simple.
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1. We give special thanks to: JMFangio.org and DDavid.com/formula1/fangio_bio.htm
2. Featured Photo is an image of the ‘Old Track’ at Monza. Visitors still venture into these banked tracks.
Stories from the PlanIt 