CASERTA'S HELL

 

Racing history enthusiasts will readily remember some of the darkest days of the sport, when multiple drivers and spectators died on a same race. Le Mans 1955, Monza 1933, Rouen 1970, Indy 1973, Imola 1994, are just some of those sad days that remind us how thousands of people lost their lives  at race tracks or places where races were held since the late 19^th century, in spite of today’s false sense of security.

 

The earliest races took place on open roads, generally from one city to another. With increasing number of vehicles and the inconvenience of closing roads for racing events, soon closed circuits emerged, while the “stradale” Targa Florio insisted in remaining open for business until the 70s. Now such racing is restricted to rallies and hill climbs.

 

It is not surprising that it was in Italy, in spite of the veteran Monza circuit, that there was some resistance to building of purpose made tracks with a semblances of safety. Very dangerous races were held in several Italian cities: Messina, Naples, Garda, Pescara, Modena, Bari, Syracuse, among others, and Caserta. In fact such races continued in the 60s, and Caserta was one of the venues used in the 1967 Italian F-3 Championship.

 

This championship was reasonably competitive, even though it did not generate world racing stars such as the British and French championships. However, on that year several future F-1 drivers contested Italian F-3: Andrea de Adamich, Clay Regazzoni, Ernesto Brambilla, Silvio Moser, Carlo Facetti. In fact, even an Italian driver who had already raced in F-1 was back in F-3, Giacomo “Geki” Russo. The latter was not only experienced (he had been racing since 1959), but he also had a special weapon for that season: he bought a Matra to compete against a number of British cars, such as Lotus and Brabham, and the Italian De Sanctis and BWA.

 

The circuit had a triangular shape and it was very narrow. The qualifying race was very animated, and it was won by Moser, followed by Geki, Corti and Reggazoni, who crossed the finish line practically together. The drama occurred on the seventh lap of the final heat. The Swiss driver Beat Fehr and Andrea Saltari touched each other on a quick part of the track and the cars ended up in a walled area, allowing little visibility.   In fact Fehr’s Brabham was thrown back to the middle of the track. A back marker, Franco Foresti, realized very late that Fehr’s car was there, hit it, and his own car was destroyed in the mayhem.

 

To avoid more accidents Beat Fehr decided to warn the front runners who were approaching very quickly.  One thing is clear, out of several versions: Geki Russo lost control of his Matra, collided with one of the cars that had already crashed, and was thrown out of his F3, which caught fire immediately. Geki died on the spot. The well intentioned Fehr ended up run over by a car, maybe Geki’s car, maybe another driver’s car, and ended up in the hospital, as did Corrado Manfredini, Jurg Dubler and Clay Regazzoni. Fehr died from his injuries some days later.  Crashes continued throughout the entire track, and the Italian driver Romano Perdoni, known as“Tiger”, ended up the third fatality of the weekend,  trapped inside his car with several internal and external injuries.  

  

When the race was finally stopped, there were only four cars running – the other drivers were either dead, at hospital or out of the race, their cars utterly destroyed. Caserta’s streets were a war zone.

 

At the time, there were only two permanent closed circuits in Italy: Monza and Vallelunga. After Caserta 67, which never again hosted a car race, little by little street races disappeared, and race tracks such as Misano, Mugello, Varano and Imola were built.  Targa Florio survived as a round of the World Championship of Makes until 1973, taking one final victim, as forgotten as Russo, Fehr and Tiger: Charles Blyth.