DPTJ Script: Race of Two Worlds: IndyCar vs. Formula 1 on Monza's Oval Track
Monza hoped to use its oval track for something if it couldn't use it for a Grand Prix
Snaking around the Autodromo Nazionale Monza is an intimidating strip of banked race track that seems to have been lost to time. Though fans still make regular treks to this historic monument, often trying to climb the tilted surface and then struggle back down.
It's been over eight decades since that circuit layout was used for a Formula 1 Grand Prix, and looking at its cracked, bumpy, and hastily repaired surface today, it's next to impossible to imagine an early Grand Prix machine careening down it at speed. Oval racing, after all, is supposed to be the sole remit of American motorsport, with NASCAR and IndyCar being the last prominent holdouts of this style of racing.
It shouldn't come as any surprise, then, that when the Grand Prix drivers of the mid-1950s argued against racing on that banking, the organizers at Monza called in the Americans for the event of a lifetime. Called the Race of Two Worlds, or the Monza 500-Miles, Monza would be the first circuit to host a competition that directly pitted American open-wheel cars against the vaguely similar machines used in Formula 1 as a way to determine national supremacy. Whose style of racing would win?
Today on Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys, we're going to dig deeper into the Race of Two Worlds to better understand the role it played in raising international tensions between American and European racing disciplines, and to pay homage to one of the most audacious promotional stunts of all time.
Building the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza
After the devastation of the first World War came to a close, many European automotive aficionados found it hard to imagine that the sport of motor racing would ever return. They had had a few fascinating years of competition in the early 1900s, but the fad seemed to be over. A new form of transportation, the airplane, had captured the minds and imaginations of people all across the continent, and there was a strong expectation that this technology would come to dominate the competitive world.
What those early naysayers missed, though, was the fact that the automobile had undergone an incredible transformation during the war. As we've talked about before on “Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys,” cars quickly came to replace animals on the battlefield, preventing the deaths of millions of living creatures in the name of war. Those early cars may not have been particularly handsome, but they were far nimbler than a creature, didn't require the critical food resources needed to fuel an army, and didn't face the aftereffects of battle, like shell shock.
We generally hail motorsport as being the best way to hone automotive technology thanks to the ever-present desire to go faster and physically have an easier time doing it, but war is another one of those high-pressure proving grounds, and after the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated while seated in an open-top automobile, the car industry was set to change forever.
Prior to World War I, the automotive industry was something of a cottage industry. There were a few big manufacturers building cars, but production was often haphazard, and there were countless smaller automakers trying to compete with the bigger outfits. As conflict set in and existing cars were drafted into the war effort — such as Renault's massive fleet of taxis — any manufacturing facility in Europe likely turned to manufacturing goods for the war effort, and that in turn forced a refining of the manufacturing process.
Some historians have referred to World War I as a “war of production,” and that rings true. As soldiers bunkered down in trenches to fight long, stalemate battles, their respective countries were looking for any innovation that could help them break through to defeat the other side. Sometimes, those inventions were smaller, designed to make life a little easier for the soldiers on the ground — this was when zippers started to appear on uniforms, while innovations in cotton manufacturing led to the creation of sanitary pads and Kleenex.
On the manufacturing front, there was a desire to quickly produce a large number of functionally identical tanks, airplanes, machine guns, and automobiles. The concept of the assembly line began to replace the traditional artisan way of going about cars, and because I grew up in Michigan and spent several years of my childhood learning about this, I do want to point out how critical that was. Previously, cars were built by a small group of people who were responsible for countless tasks that were often done by hand. For example, the person who shaped the bodywork of a car was also probably helping build the engine or piece together the interior. This required auto workers to have a diverse set of skills — something that naturally limited the pool of potential employees and also contributed to longer construction times and increased prices.
The assembly line took a lot of the human element out of automotive construction. In this format, cars were bolted together one piece at a time, with one person being responsible for exactly one task before the car moved on to the next person, who completed the next task. That meant that there was one person who did nothing all day but bolt on tires. That's all they did. They could do it quickly and efficiently, and the car would move down to the next person in line, who would attach something like a bumper. Then the car would move on to the next person, who'd do their single task, and so on until a completed car emerged at the end.
The biggest benefit of this system was the fact that it saved time. Before the assembly line, car construction could take 12 or more hours for a single machine. With the assembly line in action, car construction dropped to around 90 minutes.
That meant you could build more cars, and that those cars would all be functionally identical. That was great for the war effort since it meant that any soldier anywhere could get behind the wheel of a machine and expect it to work exactly as another machine of that make and model would work. But after the war, it also meant that it became far easier to produce cars quickly and more affordably.
It was a good thing, too, because the soldiers and volunteers who returned from battle often had a desire to travel. Imagine you and your family had spent generations working the same far, only to suddenly be drafted into the military and shipped to a new country. You probably wouldn't have enjoyed fighting in a trench for weeks on end, but you did get to see new parts of the world, where the customs were different and the towns were alive with a language you didn't speak. After you returned home — inevitably a new man, changed completely by the horrors of battle and the once-inconceivable worlds you had seen — then you may very well have had a desire to see what else this wide world had to offer, and what it looked like in peacetime. Maybe you had also become somewhat addicted to the adrenaline of the fight and were looking for a way to escape back into the heart-pounding state you'd once experienced, where the greater problems of the world disappeared in your single-minded desire to survive this specific moment.
Cars provided that escape, and thanks to wartime innovation, they were no longer the exclusive remit of the ultra-wealthy. As the dust settled, a new era of motorsport was about to begin, and it would get its start in the early 1920s when two countries — Italy and France — decided to construct permanent racing facilities as a way to continue pushing their native vehicles to the brink.
A large part of that, according to Paolo Montagna in Monza: A Glorious History, was the fact that Italy was roundly beaten by the French in the first race after the war — one that took place on Italian soil. Jules Goux won the Montichiari Grand Prix behind the wheel of a three-liter Ballot in 1921, while Italy's great challengers retired from the event. It forced a rethink of the entire Italian automotive strategy, and the Automobile Club of Milan — Italy's premiere motorsport governing body — knew something needed to change.
In January of 1922, members of the Automobile Club of Milan gathered to discuss the construction of a permanent racing facility in Italy, beginning with pinpointing an ideal location.
The committee was torn between two locations. One was in the Brughiera area of Gallarte, which is now home of the Malpensa Airport. The other was Cagnola, on the outskirts of town, which is now near the city's Corso Sempione. They drafted circuit layouts for both locations, only to decide that, actually, neither one was good enough. The Brughiera track was far too close to the city; the Cagnola one too far away.
Instead, they turned their attention to Monza Park.
The park was, admittedly, the ideal location. It was housed within a large, fenced-off area, so it wouldn't require much public disruption. It was well-serviced by public transportation, which meant spectators would be able to arrive there with ease. And, best of all, the Opera Nazionale Combattenti — the overseers of the park — were overjoyed at the idea of building a race track on its grounds.
The Automobile Club of Milan founded a new company, Società Incremento Automobilismo e Sport, or the SIAS, to oversee the construction of the track — a company that still exists today, and that is still responsible for the spectacle that is the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
A man named Senator Silvio Crespi was elected president of the SIAS, while an architect named Alfredo Rosselli was tasked with the all-important job of designing the circuit layout and ensuring there was also plenty of space for grandstands and workshop areas.
What he created was a fast, flowing circuit that included both an exterior ring road paired with an interior road course that, together, totaled 14 kilometers, or around 8.7 miles, and that would cost 6 million lire. The first foundation stone was laid in February of 1922 — just in time for the Italian government to intervene.
The under secretary for state education immediately ordered work to come to a stop, citing the fact that Monza Park is of “monumental, artistic, and landscape importance.” The main issue was that the 14-km track was just too long, and that it would come to dominate what otherwise would have been a gorgeous natural landscape. It was located in a park, after all.
The SIAS and architect Rosselli sat down once again to draft a new track, this one totalling a meager 10 kilometers, or around 6.2 miles. This design received government approval in April, and construction began in earnest on May 15, 1922.
This new Monza circuit needed to be completed within three months, by August 15, so it was all hands on deck. Paolo Montagna writes that construction required the services of 3,500 laborers, 200 carts, 30 trucks, and constant access to a five-kilometer stretch of railway that boasted two locomotives and 80 wagons.
There were plenty of reasons why this magnificent track shouldn't come to life, but on July 28, just 110 days after construction first started in earnest, the SIAS announced that the Autodromo Nazionale Monza was complete, and that an initial test drive by Pietro Bordino and Felice Nazzaro behind the wheel of a Fiat 570 had declared the track fit for racing.
This initial track featured a banked oval section that connected to a road course, while spectators had two different areas to watch from. One, an enclosed VIP section, could seat 3,000 fans and was located directly opposite the pit lane. The more general populace was invited to watch the action from any one of six grandstands that could each hold 1,000 people.
I want to pay special attention to that oval section here, because it's going to be important. That section was pretty regularly used until 1933, but during that year's Grand Prix of Monza, three drivers were killed in two separate accidents after driving over a patch of oil. Giuseppe Campari, Baconin Borzacchini, and Stanislaw Czaykowski. These drivers were considered the class of the interwar Grand Prix field, and their deaths absolutely rocked the racing world. While it didn't outright end racing in Italy, it did force the SIAS to completely scrap the high-speed oval.
Over the next several years, in the build-up to World War II, organizers tried out a handful of different track layouts that featured chicanes or other modifications to attempt to reduce speed.
There was just one problem with this decision: If a circuit changes from one race to the next, then there's no way for anyone to measure progress. At a track like Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where you knew that you'd be competing over a 2.5-mile racing surface every single year, then it was easy to track progress. The timing sheets would show how much faster your car had gone from one year to the next, and that provided a consistent benchmark against which automakers and race teams could compare themselves.
Monza didn't have that, so when the racing season wrapped up in 1938, the track was entirely reworked so that, in the future, every single event would be run on the same layout. The renovation process involved destroying most of the oval sections and constructing some new viewing areas.
Unfortunately, by the time the track was finished in September of 1939, conflict had once again swept over Europe. On the first of that month, Germany invaded Poland and kicked off the start of World War II. Racing was dead for the foreseeable future, and Monza's proud new track would have to wait to see any action.
At least, any racing action. Like much of Europe, Monza suffered damage during and after World War II. In June of 1945, to celebrate the end of the conflict, the Allied forces used the main straight of Monza to host a parade of armored vehicles, which crumbled the surface. With that done, a portion of the track was also put to use as a storage facility for surplus military vehicles and other wartime equipment that the world no longer had a need for. That was to be the circuit's destiny, at least until the end of 1947.
All things considered, racing wasn't exactly a big priority in the immediate aftermath of the war, anyway. Bombing raids and on-the-ground battles had wreaked havoc on Italy. Factories, homes, and key roads had been targeted by Allied forces looking to bring a swift end to fascism in Europe, and if any automobile production was taking place after the action, the goal was to build sturdy trucks that could transport goods, supplies, and people over anything the war had thrown at them.
Finally, in 1948, Italy had serviced its most basic needs and could consider restoring the Circuito Nazionale Monza to a raceable state. Competition had already picked up on street courses or on less-damaged tracks, so there was a strong incentive to be speedy about the repairs — and, sure enough, they were completed in right around two months. A Grand Prix was scheduled at Monza for October 17, followed soon after by a motorcycle race. In 1949, the track debuted an impressive slate of racing activity that included touring and sports car events on top of its more traditional Grands Prix — and, naturally, when the FIA and Formula 1 debuted its World Championship in 1950, the track was practically guaranteed a critical slot on the schedule.
By 1954, the SIAS looked at the track it operated, the success it had, and wondered how it could add a little extra spice. The idea of reviving the two-in-one circuit layout popped back up. Organizers trimmed the track length down to a 3.57-mile road course, then worked to reconstruct the high-speed oval, which itself clocked in at 2.64 miles. By linking those two circuits, Monza could now also host races on a 6.2-mile combined course, one that promised exceptional speeds.
Naturally, the best way to test those speeds would be to run Grand Prix cars on the combined course, and that was just what Monza did for the Italian Grand Prix that year. The Italian Grand Prix was one of a few events that managed to survive in the wake of the 1955 Le Mans disaster and the subsequent cancellation of races around Europe, and Juan Manuel Fangio took victory in Mercedes — a team that would withdraw entirely from motorsport at the end of the year.
That layout was used again in 1956, when Stirling Moss raced his Maserati to victory, but by 1957, the oval course section had been scrapped from the F1 schedule.
Why? Well, the Grand Prix drivers just didn't like the banking. An untimed practice session took place on Thursday ahead of the 1955 event, with the intention of giving drivers a chance to learn how to handle this new sort of track. Further, no Grand Prix tire manufacturer made rubber that could withstand the continued forces of that oval. Treads started lifting during practice, and almost every manufacturer present needed to make significant modifications to their cars to improve handling. Things did admittedly improve for the 1956 running, but it was very clear that the Italian Grand Prix was not meant to be run, even partially, on a banked oval.
The Race of Two Worlds
Monza's stewards were left chastened. Their grand plans of hosting Grands Prix on an oval track — or, at the very least, on a partial oval — had been firmly dashed by the fans who begged for a return to the old circuit layout and the drivers who expressed plenty of disdain at having to compete on the revamped course.
So, here they were. They had dumped so much time and money into planning and constructing this banked oval, and now they were to have nothing to show for it. No Grand Prix. No Formula 1 cars. And they were hard pressed to find any other series that hoped to take on the challenge. What were they supposed to do now? Who was ever going to use this track?
Well, they realized, there were some folks who didn't shy away from a banked oval. In fact, there were some folks who thrived on those tracks. Why, one of the biggest races in the world, the Indianapolis 500, was run on an oval. What if we encouraged the Americans to come on out to compete in Italy?
That was the start of an idea, but the authorities at Monza weren't quite sure how to market the whole event. Would Italian motorsport fans bother buying tickets to an event populated by unfamiliar drivers racing unfamiliar cars? It was extremely unlikely. No — there needed to be something more. Something unexpected.
What if we pitted the Americans against the finest Grand Prix talents of Europe? Sure, the styles of racing were as different as the cars preferred by those two very distinct continents, but anyone with any interest in motorsport would surely want to see how the Americans stacked up against the Europeans.
They called it the Race of Two Worlds, or the Monza 500 Miles.
Looking back, I'm completely enamored with this concept — it's fun, it's fresh, and it would certainly never happen today, which is part of what makes it so compelling. But not everyone was convinced.
In my beloved Cars at Speed, Robert Daley is fairly dismissive of the whole idea; he notes that “the sponsors of the expensive banking” were left “standing around naked, looking like fools.” As such, “The Race of Two Worlds came into being. Publicity-wise, togetherness-wise, it was a smashing idea and was quickly sold to three major fuel companies, each of which would sponsor one heat. Bagfuls of dough would go to the winners.”
But it was purely a spectacle, Daley implies, and a forced one at that. As he continues, “This race was not born out of any natural rivalry between American and European types of racing. None existed. A few European drivers had raced at Indianapolis, including Alberto Ascari and Rudolf Caracciola, both of whom crashed . A few Indianapolis drivers had raced in Europe, though none had won a major race since 1921.”
Nevertheless, it was going to go ahead. The organizers secured plenty of funding from oil companies, and a date was set for Sunday, June 29.
With some money in hand, now the organizers of the Race of Two Worlds just needed to convince American drivers to make the expensive and lengthy trip overseas. It was looking to be a hard sell, even with all of the sponsor dollars coming in, so the organizers made a key decision: They'd run this race with Indianapolis rules. That meant the race was run counterclockwise, like the Americans preferred, as opposed to counterclockwise, which was the European preference. The start would be a rolling start instead of a standing start, since American Indy cars had only two gears and needed to be push-started to run. And engine sizes increased; while a Grand Prix car might boast a 2.5-liter engine, the folks hosting the Race of Two Worlds opted to cap engine sizes at 4.2 liters — the exact size of the all-encompassing Offenhauser engine.
Well, that sounded like a pretty good deal to the Americans. Plenty were convinced to start loading their race cars onto ships to see if they couldn't make a quick buck — and to prove the value of oval racing to an otherwise disaffected audience.
And what of the Grand Prix drivers? Well, as Daley writes, “The European drivers looked around, realized that they could not possibly escape from such a race with honor, and declined the invitation.”
In fact, the great Louis Chiron even went so far as to form a new organization called the International Professional Drivers’ Union, which was tasked with representing the Grand Prix talent in this whole affair. The union denounced the race, stating that none of its member drivers would attend — though the organizers of the Race of Two Worlds couldn't understand why.
Beyond the fact that the rules of this race were clearly designed to favor the Americans, there were also some legitimate safety concerns. While over in America, Firestone had had decades of experience creating rubber that could withstand the high speeds and g-forces of oval racing, no tire company in Europe had done the same. And why should they? Aside from a few ovals that had faded away, that style of racing just didn't exist. The International Professional Drivers’ Union stated that it would be unsafe to compete on tires that weren't suited to withstand the expected 170-mph lap speed, and they knew that because the Italian Grand Prix run on the oval had been a disaster.
Daley asserts that there was no natural competition between American and European styles of racing, and I can kind of see where he's coming from from a technological point of view. He's absolutely right that Grand Prix cars and Indy cars were very different machines designed to serve very different purposes. But I do think his assessment ignores the very real fact that Grand Prix drivers and Indy car drivers definitely looked at the other camp with a smirk and raised eyebrows.
The longtime argument that oval racing is easy because it's just turning left already existed at this point, and that sentiment was one of the various reasons why European drivers never bothered to go to Indianapolis, even when it was part of the F1 calendar. It was below them. Meanwhile, the American drivers felt that Grand Prix racing was an unserious sport for rich debutants — and this total lack of participation from those drivers proved it.
“In Indianapolis, there was a great deal of coarse laughter,” Daley writes. “The reluctance of the Europeans was greeted as proof that they were ‘chicken,’ afraid to be shown up for what they were, ‘cheese champions.’ The Americans had always known Indy racing was the best. This proved it. You had to have guts to race at Indy.”
Those so-called cheese champions were pretty cheesed by the assertion that their racing was somehow inherently lesser than American racing simply because their cars weren't designed to withstand the relentless brutality of a long-distance oval race — but no Grand Prix driver rose to take the bait.
In retrospect, it's a little surprising to think that Monza's organizers believed this scheme could work. After all, it's not like the F1 drivers of the era didn't want to race the Italian Grand Prix on a banked oval because they simply didn't like the track layout. They didn't want to race because their cars were literally not designed for that kind of competition, which made it extremely dangerous. As I mentioned above, part of the oval was constructed in such a way that it crossed overtop the road course with a bridge. There were no guardrails there, so if you happened to lose control of your race car at just the wrong spot, you would not just crash, but you would fall off a bridge to do it. And, just for a little added danger, if you somehow avoided falling back onto the racing surface of the road course, there was a good chance you'd fall into some trees. There was really no winning on that one.
That being said, the press didn't sound particularly impressed with the F1 contingent. Motor Sport Magazine reported, “Barely one month before the event the European Grand Prix stars got together and refused point-blank to have anything to do with racing on the banked oval, without even taking the trouble to go to Monza and make any experiments specifically for track racing. Added to this, certain famous drivers, and some not-so-famous organisations made deliberate attempts to sabotage the event and undermine the morale of all those connected with it or interested in track racing.”
I haven't exactly been able to track down what those sabotage allegations included, but I do want to share another Motor Sport Magazine excerpt from the second running of the race that highlights the backlash against this first outing.
Do you recall, Fangio said “A dangerous race,” Hawthorn said “I’m not interested in such a dangerous event,” Moss said “I’m a road racing driver, not a track driver,” Schell said “No driver could stand the physical strain of racing round the banked Monza track,” Musso and Trintignant did not say much, but threw in their lot with the U.P.P.I. Three Europeans turned up in 1957, Jack Fairman, John Lawrence and Ninian Sanderson, and they cleaned up a very large bag of gold. This year Fangio, Moss, Hawthorn, Musso, Schell and Trintignant all entered for the 500-mile race. Why this sudden complete reversal of the very strong views they held last year? It couldn’t be that they were wrong in what they said, or at least none of them admitted as much; no, the real reason was purely and simply a question of money. The prize money for the 500-mile race was once again enormous, and spread out over the whole field so that anyone who qualified and took part would be almost sure to come out on the right side. Last year the American track drivers said quite simply, “We race to win money, the harder you drive the more you win, that’s the way we live in our racing,” and what a nice open and honest attitude it was. Fair enough, the European road racing drivers decided to have a go this year in order to win some of that money, so prospects for an American versus European battle were good before the Monza track was opened for testing.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let's get back to the June 29, 1957 event.
After the 1957 Indianapolis 500, which was won by a man named Sam Hanks who retired the moment he got to victory lane, 10 of the best oval-racing cars in America were hauled to New York, where they caught a ship to Genoa, Italy. Ten American drivers, four reserve drivers, and a handful of personnel flew out to Milan later, with the event organizers having sorted out some help from Alfa Romeo. When the Indy cars arrived in Genoa, it would be up to the Alfa factory to transport the cars safely to Monza, as well as to provide two mechanics to each team in a show of goodwill.
The event itself would be run over a total of 500 miles, but the racing action was split into three 63-lap heats with an hour break in between. That was primarily a safety measure, designed to allow the drivers to make stops and repairs and recover before taking on the next chunk of the race. The overall race winner would be decided in favor of the driver who completed all three heats with the highest average speed.
As you've probably already guessed, a big portion of the field consisted of American cars; the bulk of the Americans raced with Kurtis Kraft machines, there were also two Kuzmas, one Phillips, and one Watson. Offenhauser engines served as the primary powerplant, with two of the American entries featuring Novi engines.
But who did we have on our entry list? I want to quickly run through the Americans, because I think a large portion of my audience likely has greater familiarity with their European contemporaries.
First up was Jimmy Bryan, three-time Indy car champion and 1958 Indy 500 winner. Bryan was known for racing with an unlit cigar in his mouth, in part to prevent his teeth from rattling together. He was driving a Kuzma chassis with an Offenhauser engine.
Next is Bob Veith, a Californian piloting a Offenhauser-powered Phillips. He was 1956 Indy 500 Rookie of the year but didn't win any Indy car races.
Behind the wheel of a Kurtis Kraft 500G powered by an Offy was Pat O’Connor, a local Indiana boy who scored two championship car victories and who had taken pole at the 1957 Indy 500. Sadly, he was killed in a 15-car pile-up at the 500 in 1958.
Tony Bettenhausen was up next, a two-time Indy car champion with 22 open-wheel wins under his belt, a strong stock car career, and entries in six Halls of Fame. He had a Novi-powered Kurtis Kraft 500F for this race.
Then we had the Clown Prince of Auto Racing, Eddie Sachs, who secured Indy car wins but who was ultimately killed in a fiery crash at the 1964 Indy 500. If you've ever heard the oft-repeated quotes “I'd sooner finish second than be dead” or “If you can't win, be spectacular,” then you inadvertently know of Sachs. At the Race of Two Worlds, he had a Kurtis Kraft 500G with an Offenhauser.
Ray Crawford, born in Roswell, New Mexico, was a fighter pilot exposed to racing by his high school classmate Sam Hanks. He entered five Indy 500s in his career and was racing an Offy-powered Kurtis Kraft 500G at Monza.
Troy Ruttman and Jim Rathmann would share an Offy-powered Watson. At just 22 years old, Ruttman still holds the record for being the youngest Indy 500 winner — one of his two Indy car wins. Jim Rathmann would go on to take victory at the 1960 Indy 500, one of his three total wins.
Paul Musso of Wisconsin had secured two wins in his two-decade long racing career, and at Monza, he was driving a Kurtis Kraft 500F powered by a Novi.
Pennsylvania's Andy Lindon never won an Indy car event, though he did earn an entry into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. At Monza, he was racing a Kurtis Kraft 500G with an Offy engine.
And, finally, there was Johnnie Parsons with his Offy-powered Kuzma. Parsons won the 1950 Indy 500, just one of his 11 career wins, and was also the 1959 Indy car champion.
Or, as Motor Sport Magazine put it, these men were the equivalents of “Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn, Luigi Musso, Jean Behra, and Tony Brooks.”
I also love the way the author of this Motor Sport Magazine piece went on to describe the Americans:
All the drivers concerned are considered professional, inasmuch as they race for money and live by their racing, but the owners are another matter altogether. They are mostly wealthy people in American commerce who have a passion for racing cars and racing, and spend a great deal of money on buying a car, maintaining one or two full-time mechanics, and paying a professional driver, few if any of the owners being interested in driving themselves. As they have made their money in business, it is only natural that they should run their racing cars on strictly business lines, and due to the healthy state of the organisation of track racing in America, it is possible for a successful owner-mechanic-driver combination to make a great deal of money at motor-racing. They race at numerous tracks all over America, culminating in the annual 500-Mile Race at Indianapolis, which is considered the absolute top in American track racing.
Almost every big-time American track car being owned by someone as a hobby, the capital coming from some sort of business other than motor-racing, which explains some of the strange names given to American track cars. This whole set-up is entirely self-contained having no connection with the general run of the motor industry, and because of this there is a very pleasant open and honest atmosphere about the thing, no one having any axes to grind, or industry big-bosses to cover up for, or reflections to be cast on a manufacturer’s motor car or accessory, as we find in European racing.
Not a single one of those European drivers entered the race — aside from Behra, who practiced behind the wheel of a Maserati. In fact, in order to get literally any kind of international flair to this race, organizers opened up entries to sports car racers, and the Ecurie Ecosse team brought three Jaguar D-Types out to Monza for drivers John Lawrence, Jack Fairman, and Ninan Sanderson.
Now, let's get into the weekend. After a day of unofficial testing so the Americans could come to grips with the track, official practice began with something that keen Indy 500 fans will know as “rookie orientation.” Basically, this means that drivers new to the track had to run a ton of laps at slowly-increasing speeds in order to show that they — both driver and machine — could handle the event. Motor Sport Magazine notes that “the Americans all complied with the driver-test without complaining,” which was something of a surprise considering the Grand Prix drivers had been asked to do something similar ahead of the Italian Grand Prix and were not at all pleased with having to do so.
I think that's one of my favorite things from this race report: Time and again, the reporter points out that the Americans just… did what they were asked. If they needed to do some rookie orientation, well — that was fine. They had plenty of time to hone their cars and driving style in practice after. If the Monza track turned out to be particularly bumpy, well, they'll get over it. By the end of that day's practice, Pat O’Connor set a lap record of 170.6 miles per hour, with a time of 55.7 seconds around the track. Apparently, that “made the disbelievers stand up and remove their hats, for these were speeds that Europe had forgotten about.”
“As the final day of practice ended,” Motor Sport Magazine wrote, “there was much grief in the paddock, for bits had broken off, tanks had split, suspensions had sagged and bodywork had split, but no one was griping, they were all working away like beavers getting everything repaired for the race on the morrow, the electric welding plant working overtime.”
Tony Bettenhausen, who's described as “a sort of Indianapolis Fangio” took pole position, with the big American cars lining up behind him. The three Jaguar sports cars formed a battalion at the very back of the field, lapping the track six seconds slower than Bettenhausen.
Race day in 1957 dawned oppressively hot, with temperatures climbing up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. When the flag flew, the three Jaguars were able to launch into the lead thanks to their four-speed gearboxes, which allowed them to accelerate faster than the American cars with their two-speed gearboxes. Jack Fairman led the first lap, until the Indy cars had warmed up and left them in their dust.
Indy cars swept the first seven positions in the first heat, with Bettenhausen suffering a broken sway bar, and Bob Veith being the only man unable to pass the Jaguars. Repairs kicked off before the first heat, which saw more Indy car retirements: Eddie Sachs with broken cam house bolts, Andy Linden with a cracked frame, Pat O’Connor with a split fuel tank, and Veith with steering issues. Jimmy Bryan led the field, with the Jaguars inheriting fifth, sixth, and seventh — the three final positions running at the end of that heat.
At last came the third heat, with two more USAC retirements. The Jaguars all survived to the end, and during the prize ceremony, Jimmy Bryan was crowned the winner: He was the only driver who completed all 189 laps. He won $35,000 and took home the crown.
But the three Jaguars also swept up a tidy sum. As Robert Daley writes, “That the Jags could win several thousands of dollars while being lapped 12 times, 18 times, and 30 times, was to have an important bearing on the following year's race.”
The American cars were powerful, and they were quick, but they'd suffered so many reliability problems that it got European manufacturers thinking. If they'd entered the race, they certainly wouldn't have won… but they may very well have finished well enough to take home thousands. That alone was enticing enough that, when the second running of the Race of Two Worlds was announced for June 29, 1958, several Grand Prix teams set to work modifying some cars to be ready for the next event. Even Ferrari grudgingly had to participate, because the Automobile Club of Italia was offering a prize at the end of the year to the most successful Italian team in racing — and the Race of Two Worlds was a mandatory event.
Again, for 1958, 10 Americans were invited to Italy to represent USAC, but this time, two additional USAC cars were provided for Juan Manuel Fangio and Maurice Trintignant. Ferrari arrived with three modified Formula 1 cars, one of which actually attempted the Indianapolis 500. Masten Gregory and Ivor Bueb entered with Jaguar D-Type sports cars, while Stirling Moss turned up with a custom-built Maserati and Jack Fairman with a custom-built Lister. Other Formula 1 drivers included Luigi Musso, Mike Hawthorn, and Phil Hill. All told, there were a whopping 19 cars entered for the race, which was a serious improvement from the year before.
Even more exciting was the prize purse — around $80,000, which was about 40 times what the winner of the Italian Grand Prix made that year.
In 1958, practice kicked off pretty early, with the European drivers feeling the pressure to get up to speed a week before the race was actually set to take place. But this year, there was another point of contention between the American and European factions: Weather.
If you're an American oval racing fan, you know that we don't race in the rain. It's considered incredibly dangerous, since your car is generally racing on the knife's-edge of adhesion even in dry conditions. So, when Thursday and Friday dawned under gloomy clouds, the Americans suggested that, if the weather kept up, they'd head home. They hung out in the pits while other drivers like Stirling Moss behind the wheel of his massive, custom-built Maserati attempted to get some laps in.
Thankfully, by Friday afternoon, the weather cleared, and qualifying could begin. Your place on the grid was set by your average speed over three consecutive laps. All the drivers could be out circling the track, but when one driver felt like he'd got his car into prime qualifying position, he'd raise his arm, and the rest of the drivers were brought into the pits. The driver in question would set his three qualifying laps, then everyone else would be sent back out. That session continued into Saturday, and by race day, Sunday, the clouds had cleared and the race was again looking to be run in extremely hot conditions. Luigi Musso had qualified on pole with Ferrari, but he knew that because his car would require at least one tire change per heat, he had no chance of actually crossing the finish line first; at the very least, though, he hoped he'd make it to the end to scoop up plenty of prize money.
But this 1958 running also brought plenty of head-butting between the Americans and the Europeans. The Ferrari F1 cars turned out to be hair-raisingly quick in qualifying despite the fact that the cars were totally unsuited to oval racing, and apparently, at one point, Jimmy Bryan was forced to swerve out of the way as a Jaguar darted in front of him on his qualifying lap.
Bryan declared the European cars “nothing but junkboxes,” and added, “I have been trying to get along with the drivers, but as of now, I quit trying.”
The whole weekend kicked off a deep rift between the European and American contingents, which Robert Daley writes about really eloquently in his book Cars at Speed. He states that there's a “dignity” to European motor racing, that the drivers are aristocrats who are intelligent, multilingual, careful.
“The Indy drivers,” Daley writes, “are quite the opposite. They are scrappers, men who have fought their way up from nothing to the point where an entire nation watches them for a few hours one day a year — and will have nothing to do with them the rest of the time, regarding them as reckless, uncouth, dirty.
“The Indy drivers seemed to resent dignity of any kind, and particularly when it was accorded to men just like themselves. They resented the fact that European contract drivers, because of starting money, are well paid win or lose. They resented the Europeans’ pride in their machines. It was true that a Grand Prix car could race on any kind of road, could turn all sorts of corners at speeds of from 10 to 170 mph. But it could not match the sheer power of their own, so what was all the shouting about?”
To illustrate his point, Daley points out that the European contingent “did not like to be drawn into a race like this one, where courage was more important than skill — the only substantial difference between the various drivers. It is too dangerous.”
He also notes that the Europeans “saw that the cards were stacked overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans, but that “This point seemed to escape the Americans entirely; they seemed to feel that their superiority was something which could not be proved often enough.”
Now, I'll be honest: I'm sure there's truth to what Daley is saying here, but I also do have to point out that it's not exactly like prize money in America was nonexistent, or that these drivers were racing at the Indy 500 and never getting behind the wheel of the car for the rest of the year. I also want to point out that the Grand Prix drivers weren't exactly making bank, either. Some drivers did receive salaries, but most were just given a portion of their prize money, with much of the rest going back to the factory. It was just a little easier for those drivers to deal with smaller paychecks because, as Daley correctly notes, many of them came from money, while the Indy drivers generally came from more working class backgrounds.
Now, let's get back to race day. In the morning, at the driver's meeting, Masten Gregory — an American, albeit one driving a Jaguar — told Jimmy Bryan, “I'll watch out for you in my mirror, Jim, and let you pass any time. Where do you want to pass, high or low?”
“Masten, it don't make a damn to me what you do. I'll go by you so fast it won't make any difference at all.”
Such was the tone of the race.
In the first heat, Eddie Sachs and polesitter Musso swapped the lead several times at high speed, only for the American to break a connecting rod. Musso himself was forced into the pits to hand his Ferrari over to Mike Hawthorn, having been overcome by methanol fumes. Jim Rathmann crossed the finish line first in heat number one, with Jimmy Bryan being the only other driver on the lead lap.
Three of the Indy cars had suffered some kind of mechanical failure, while Phil Hill's Ferrari retired with a broken magneto. The Ferrari of Musso and Hawthorn finished sixth, and Stirling Moss in his specially-built Maerati was the best of the European bunch, coming home fourth.
But what of the European drivers with the American cars? Well, Maurice Trintigant crossed the line ninth. Juan Manuel Fangio, though, didn't take the green flag. According to Robert Daley, Fangio had no intention of racing, and that he had basically been used by promoters as a way to lure in crowds. It's not clear why Fangio would agree to that kind of thing, but it appeared that's exactly what he's done. His mechanics wheeled his car to the starting grid for the first two heats, only to pull it back to the pits for mysterious repairs. In the third heat, Fangio turned two laps and retired, citing a broken fuel pump.
Heading into heat two, Trintignant decided he'd had enough; he stepped out of the car and let the inimitable A. J. Foyt take over for the rest of the race. Musso once again looked like a strong competitor, only to pull into the pits after 19 of 63 laps to hand his car over to another relief driver, Phil Hill. Stirling Moss looked strong but began to suffer engine problems that dropped him back to fifth. Yet again, the top slots were all occupied by the Americans, with Rathmann taking another heat win.
The third heat was more of the same, with just 11 cars taking the flag. Rathmann took his third heat win of the day, with Jimmy Bryan close behind. Luigi Musso opted against starting this heat, instead leaving his Ferrari to Hawthorn, who also ended up needing relief from Phil Hill after 25 laps.
The biggest shake-up came in the form of Stirling Moss. On lap 40, he grazed the top barrier of the banking at around 165 mph, bursting two tires and sending him into a mad spin. Somehow, he avoided hitting anything else or flipping, and came to rest in the infield, shaken but unhurt. The only other drama came in the form of the Indy drivers blocking the Grand Prix drivers in ways that the Grand Prix drivers found unacceptable — but at the end of the day, the only two drivers to complete every lap were Rathmann and Bryan.
In 1958, the prize purse was bigger, and thousands more spectators showed up than had in 1957. AJ Foyt told reporters that he'd enjoyed the challenge of the track, and that he hoped he'd be able to return for another running in the future.
Sadly, though, there would be no third Race of Two Worlds. Even though the event had been a success in almost every category, it had failed in one: Making money. The Automobile Club of Milan was left in debt, and it struggled to find any backers willing to foot the bill for 1959. That was that: The Race of Two Worlds was done.
Race of Two Worlds: The Fallout
One of the most fascinating things about the Race of Two Worlds, or the Monza 500, or Monzanapolis — whatever you'd like to call it — is the role this event played in actively bringing two distinct motorsport mindsets together.
Now, this event wasn't the first time a European had raced Americans, or an American had challenged a Grand Prix driver. After all, by 1957, Alberto Ascari had already dipped off to try his hand at the Indianapolis 500, while over in Formula 1, drivers like Harry Schell, John Fitch, and Masten Gregory had shipped off to Europe to see how they fared in Grand Prix racing. And this is a sentiment that existed all the way back before World War I.
But I will say that this event was one of the first that pitted American and European racers against one another in a competitive manner that admittedly bordered on hostile. When Ascari tried the 500, he did so thinking he could conquer the Americans with ease but, when that proved impossible, he completely changed his mindset and was happy to show his respect for a new kind of racing. And guys like Masten Gregory were more interested in the European style approach to road racing, so they didn't have any firm beliefs in the superiority of American motorsport. Further, the folks who were content to look down on the overseas competition simply didn't have to make the long trip to a new country to try something if they were convinced they'd hate it. If they wanted to talk shit, they were doing it at home.
The Race of Two Worlds bucked a lot of the conventions that had kinda been established by that point, and the whole premise was pretty antagonistic. Monza organizers were basically inviting a bunch of Americans over to challenge European drivers on their home turf, and they crafted a set of rules that would basically guarantee that would happen.
When the Grand Prix drivers withdrew due to concerns about both their safety and their egos, the Americans used it as an opportunity to talk trash about an entire subset of racing. And the Grand Prix drivers weren't much better, making a point to argue that oval racing wasn't even real racing in the first place. It's a massive clash of cultures. Naturally, it resulted in a lot of hard feelings that we still see played out today.
But… There was one other unintended consequence to the Race of Two Worlds: Juan Manuel Fangio tried his hand at the Indianapolis 500.
In 1957, when Fangio declined to enter the event, one racing fan and business tycoon named Floyd Clymer roundly declared that Juan Manuel Fangio was no World Champion if he wouldn't dare race against the Americans. He proposed that if Fangio really didn't like the rules that were weighted heavily in favor of the American racers at Monza, then he should instead make a trip over to the United States, where everyone could compete in the same kind of machinery.
But Clymer also carried an offer: If Fangio wanted to truly prove himself, Clymer would pay him $500 to sign up for the Indianapolis 500, $1,000 if he could qualify for it, $2,500 if he could finish in the top five in an American built car, and $5,000 if he could do the same in a foreign machine.
It was an offer too good to refuse. Not only was the money good, but for Fangio, nearing the end of his racing career, this offer represented a chance to try something new and further pad his legacy. If it didn't work out, well, no worries: His entry was more in the name of friendly competition than anything else.
Fangio decided that 1958 would be his year, and it actually turned out to be impeccable timing. If you remember all the way back to the very first “Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys” episode, you'll know that in February of 1958, Fangio had been kidnapped by Cuban Revolutionaries ahead of the Havana Grand Prix. The World Champion was held overnight, kicking off a media blitz that actually boosted his popularity in the United States.
Shortly after his release, he was flown to New York City, where he was paid $1,000 to appear on the Ed Sullivan show. During the interview, he laughed and said, "I had won the World Championship five times but what made me big in the United States was being kidnapped in Cuba — which I thought was a bit strange."
Why not boost his American earnings with a jaunt to the Indy 500?
So, Fangio made some phone calls and found a Kurtis-Offenhauser machine owned by George Walther Jr. up for grabs. Sponsored by the Dayton Steel Foundry, the Kurtis was one of the finest racing machines on offer in America, but it was vastly different to anything available in Europe at the time.
Practice for the Indianapolis 500 began on the first of May and was set to last the full month; Fangio arrived on April 28, 1958 to a media bonanza and set to work getting up to speed. All new drivers at the 500 have to pass ‘rookie orientation,’ which proves that they are able to traverse the 2.5-mile oval track at progressively higher speeds. Naturally, Fangio passed with flying colors.
But as practice continued, his performance stagnated. His team struggled to extract performance from the fairly rudimentary Offenhauser four-cylinder engine, and Fangio started to look for other options.
He found one: A car owned by Lew Welch that was powered by a V8 with a mechanical turbine. Fangio gave it a go for 10 laps, and while he did manage to set the fastest time among the competitors driving V8s, his lap times were even slower than they'd been with Walther's car.
Nearing the end of his decorated career and unwilling to struggle in one of the biggest races of the year, Juan Manuel Fangio withdrew from the race. His fastest lap time in practice would have only been good enough for a 31st-place starting grid in a field of 33, and if there was no shot at winning the race, well — Fangio didn't want to bother. After all, the race was still dangerous, and he had managed to survive one of the most dangerous eras in motorsport thus far. Why try his luck?
Fangio packed his things and headed back to Europe halfway through the month, opting to donate his $500 winnings from Floyd Clymer to a local cancer charity in Indiana. But just like Alberto Ascari before him, Fangio found the Americans surprisingly welcoming when he was willing to approach their style of racing with respect.
Oh, and the whole premise of the Race of Two Worlds — that Formula 1 cars should compete against Indy cars in order to see which is the superior machine? That would happen again in the future. But that's a story for another episode of "Deadly Passions, Terrible Joys.”
Bibliography
Cars at Speed: The Grand Prix Circuit by Robert Daley
Monza: A Glorious History by Paolo Montagna
Ford's assembly line starts rolling, History
1955 Italian Grand Prix race report: Fangio crowned F1 champion for third time, Motor Sport Magazine
The Monza 500 Mile Race (1957), Motor Sport Magazine
The Monza 500-mile race (1958), Motor Sport Magazine
Another Monza 500 miles, Motor Sport Magazine
F1 vs Indycar at 'Monzanapolis', Motor Sport Magazine