1000 Miglia 1984

About the Event

It is 27 years since the last pure road race was run. The Mille Miglia a thousand miles of full-throttle bravado, crossing Italy by mountain passes where the penalty for a mistake was instant, thundering through small towns thronged with people whose only protection was a few straw bales and the drivers’ skill. All along the route people turned out in their thousands, heedless of danger, to cheer their heroes through 10 or 12 hours of non-stop driving from Brescia in the North across to Padua, down the Adriatic coast to Pescara, thence across the Abruzzi mountains to Rome. From Rome the raucous sports-racing cars would streak northwards through Florence, thundering up over the mountains and hurtling down the other side, and on to Bologna and Modena from the final section which would take them back to Brescia.

It was an extreme test, and inevitably there were accidents. A current of discontent began to be felt, until in 1957 everybody’s fear became fact. On the very last section stretch before Brescia, a wheel collapsed on the Ferrari driven by the Marquis de Portago while he was travelling at 150 mph. The toll of the resulting horrific accident, and others during the race, was 15 deaths, and after some months of bitter argument the Italian government finally banned the race.

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