Masters of Monaco take to the street

By Mike Kable

MOTOR-SPORT fans following the Formula One circus would have had all eyes on the small European principality of Monaco last Sunday, where Michael Schumacher took the famed Ferrari team to its first win of the season.

However, for those with a nostalgic bent, a series of races through the same street circuit around Monte Carlo the week before provided spectators with just as many thrills as more than US$1 billion worth of historic racing machinery took to the streets.

The main race may not have been as fast as the current crop of F1 cars but it was certainly as furious with a tense scrap between Jean-Louis Duret and Klaus Werner; Bugatti Type 35B versus Alfa Romeo 8C2300 Monza.

Duret won at an average speed of 82.795kmh, to the great delight of the patriotic crowd, in what was the first Bugatti victory for more than 60 years.

Their spirited duel -- with Werner losing out due to a punctured front tire after tangling with Durant at the La Rascasse hairpin -- was reminiscent of the well-documented early- 1930s battle between the Italian greats, Achille Varzi and Tazio Nuvolari, driving the same cars.

The race, staged by the Automobile Club de Monaco, was part of a series with nonchampionship Grand Prix status for historic sports and racing cars that marked the 700th anniversary of the principality's royal rulers, the Grimaldi family.

They were contested by a stunning array of more than 200 cars spanning eight decades of racing.

Several of them had been Monaco Grand Prix winners many years ago, such as the 1968 Lotus 49B, which carried 1962 to 1968 world champion Graham Hill -- reigning F1 titleholder Damon's late father -- to one of his five victories in Monaco, and the Repco- Brabham V8 in which New Zealand's Denny Hulme took the checkered flag in 1967 en route to his crown.

Team Lotus cars were thick on the ground, including one of the rare-type 25s 1963 to 1965 world champion and 1965 Indianapolis 500 winner Jimmy Clark drove to the first of his 25 F1 wins in the 1962 Belgian Grand Prix.

The fabulous front-engined cars of the 1950s were represented by no fewer than 10 250F Maseratis, a sprinkling of Ferraris and what is arguably the greatest of them all, one of the five surviving Alfa Romeo 158s (powered by a straight-eight, 1.5- liter, twin-supercharged engine developing more than 500bhp) in which Nino Farina and Juan Manuel Fangio won the respective 1950 to 1951 world championships.

This particular car is the only privately owned 158, having just been sold by its former American owner, Carol Spagg, to Brazilian multimillionaire collector Carlos Monteverdi.

Englishman Willy Green, who emerged from a three-year retirement after a 37-year involvement in historic racing, drove it with great verve, in what was the first race -- as distinct from demonstration runs -- contested by a 158 since the end of 1951.

It was worth the effort and expense of making a double pilgrimage to Monaco this year to see and hear the shrill scream of this glorious machine pitched against a pair of Maseratis in a hard-fought race of pre-1952 GP cars that was won by fellow- Briton Martin Stretton in his 1932 4CM Maserati.

The 1920s and 1930s eras were represented by a stack of GP Bugattis, Maseratis, 8C Alfa Romeos, ERAs and MG's most famous model, the supercharged six-cylinder K3 Magnette, which among many achievements scored an 1100cc category win in the 1933 Mille Miglia (1,000 mile) road race.

One of the sports car races featured 24 Ferraris of various 1950s vintages, topped by several 250 Testa Rossas of the type which set a world record auction price in the 1980s of $20 million.

In action, over two days, the colorful cars and their drivers gave an indescribable treat of sight, sound and fury in turning back the clock to motor racing as it used to be.

Nostalgia hung heavily in the air, amid clouds of tire smoke from spinning wheels and the odor of exotic fuels and Castrol R oil.

The most celebrated participant was three-time (1956, 1960, 1961) Monaco Grand Prix winner Stirling Moss, at the wheel of a 1959 Tipo 161 Maserati, nicknamed Birdcage in its day because of its multitube chassis construction.

Moss has not raced around the tortuous 3.3km street circuit since 1961, when he drove a Rob Walker team Lotus 18 to what he said was his greatest victory, against the Ferraris of that year's world champion Phil Hill and Richie Ginther, in a 100-lap start-to-finish thriller.

Onlookers included F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and his wife Slavitza, six-time Le Mans 24-hour winner Jacky Ickx, British and French 1950s F1 aces Tony Brooks and Maurice Trintignant (who gave Ferrari its second Monaco victory in 1955), Rob Walker and Baron Toulo de Graffenried, president of the Anciennes Pilotes (old drivers) Association, who had been a spectator at the 1934 and 1935 Monaco Grand Prix before starting his career in 1938.

Two Australians, Spencer Martin -- a two-time Australian Gold Star winner in the 1960s -- and Ivan Glasby, were among the lucky drivers who realized a lifelong dream to race at Monaco.

Martin drove Kerry Manolas' 1953 C-type Jaguar to a creditable seventh place in the 27-car pre-1960 sports car race, while Glasby was a midfield runner in his 1957 Cooper-Bristol in a pre- 1960 Grand Prix event.

At the end of those memorable two days, everyone agreed it had been worth every centime of the 10,000 French franc ($2380) entry fee to realize every racing driver's dream of racing in a Monaco Grand Prix.

Will it happen again? Only time will tell, but some influential people are already campaigning for a repeat to mark the end of this millennium.