An obsession called speed. Gastone Brilli-Peri was a whirlwind

When he was little, he always looked forward to going to the countryside, in the hills just outside the estate his parents had in Montevarchi. Gastone Brilli-Peri he was convinced that this was heaven, the best place in the world. He had a lot of fun, especially when he started walking arm in arm with a wooden plank to reach the highest part of the estate. There he anointed it on one side with the grease that was used to lubricate agricultural machinery and threw himself down the slope. The harder he went the more pleasure he felt. He started doing it when he was five years old. He only stopped when he had about a dozen. He had found better. He had discovered that riding a bicycle he could give vent to the passion that he felt flaring up inside him in a more satisfying way. Speed. This he needed. Only of this. Of a damned, loving, fiery speed. He had realized that he was about three years old when he let himself be pulled down by gravity from the top of a chute. He had confirmation of this when he first rode that board down the slope. He had also tried horses, but was disappointed: the horses did, in one way or another, what they liked, not what he wanted. This is why he fell in love with the bicycle, because he could decide how fast to go. And it was never enough.

His first bicycle was given to him by his uncle, the Marquis Maccarani, a man in love with progress. He told his father it was the future. Not even time to say it and Gastone was already in the saddle. Seconds later he was already on the ground. It took him a few hours to learn to balance, a few days to understand that it was what he dreamed of.

It was white, shiny. She made a splash.

Two years later he had a black one bought for him, with the handlebars that curled downwards like those of the runners. The bike was black and he always wore black, because black was an elegant color. And he was a count, and his father always told him that a count had to be elegant. He cared about this, even when he was a daredevil on a bicycle, which is always.

Gastone Brilli-Peri was going strong. Very strong. He was thirteen and when the road was level he followed the adults. And when someone said let’s see who gets to that farmhouse first, he left them all behind. There was none for anyone, he was the fastest. And even if there was to throw himself downhill he was the strongest. Not uphill. It wasn’t for him. If they detached it to go up, however, they found it between the wheels once they found the piano.

In 1908 in Mercatale Valdarno Gastone Brilli-Peri lined up everyone. He was fifteen, he was the youngest. And by far. Of the fifty participants in the race, open only to runners under 21, only two were under 18.

Two years later, in 1910 at seventeen, he began beating the pros as well. In Rome, in a criterium, he overtook Dario Beni in the sprint, one of the best sprinters around at the time. In Pistoia, in another criterium, in addition to Dario Beni also Ernesto Azzini, basically so much of the best that Italian cycling, and not only Italian, had to offer in terms of speed.

Gastone Brilli-Peri was crazy: “A whirlwind of speed and power”, wrote the Nation commenting on his victory in the Tuscan championship. “It will give enormous satisfaction to Florence and to the whole nation in speed racing”.

It didn’t happen that way.

Because Gastone Brilli-Peri enjoyed himself on his bike, but he found something better. He began to understand that the speed of a bicycle could not be compared to that of a motorcycle. And speed was passion and obsession. He ended up riding a Della Ferrera.

Then came the First World War: 69th Infantry Regiment, motorcyclist attached to the Press Office of the Supreme Command. He said it was nice to ride a motorcycle every day. The veterans didn’t appreciate it, then they forgot everything. Why in the meantime Gastone Brilli-Peri had discovered cars and in a racing car he knew how to make fans fall in love. And punish the opponents. Champions such as Giuseppe Campari, Antonio Ascari and above all Tazio Nuvolari ended up behind him more than once. Before ending all in Nuvolari by Lucio Dalla.

He said that driving a racing car was the best thing he had ever experienced in his life. That he would never stop. That he’d rather die in a race car. On March 22, 1930 “shortly after 1 pm, while the racer Gastone Brilli Peri was testing the race course on a closed circuit, having arrived in Suk El Giuma, 5 km from Tripoli, having lost control of his powerful car, he collided against a garden wall. The car was traveling at a speed of 180 km per hour at the time. The impact was tremendous. Thrown from his seat, the valiant Tuscan driver was killed instantly”.

Two days later he would have turned twenty-seven, he was born on March 24, 1893. Friends had prepared a great party for him and bought him a brand new motorcycle. He never drove it.