Rachele, rally driver in the race against cystic fibrosis

Next time he will race in Rome: the leg of the European rally championship passes through the capital in days. Departure at the Colosseum and arrival, after a tour of a thousand kilometres, in Fiuggi. A dream come true for Rachele Somaschini, rally driver and motorsport enthusiast, one of the very few women to take part in the championship. Difficult for everyone but for her a little more, because Rachele has cystic fibrosis: when you have a disease like this, which puts dehydration at risk and reduces lung capacity, resisting sixty degrees inside the passenger compartment is anything but simple . So that participation in the European championship is not only the victory of a woman in an all-male environment, but hides something more, as she confides to Salute, a few days after the release of her book “Running for a breath”, published by Baldini+Castoldi.

The passion for engines

Rachele’s passion for engines was born a long time ago. Daughter of art – her father is also a driver – she starts with the first speed races on the track, before falling in love with rallying. And it is thanks to her passion for motors that over the years she has become an ambassador for cystic fibrosis research, with the motto of “let’s make research run faster than the disease”. “For many years I remained hidden, I found it difficult to speak openly and I was small. Then everything changed after participating in a campaign for the donation of 5 per thousand of the Foundation for research on Cystic Fibrosis – he says – after that, every time I was interviewed during a competition, and it often happened given that the there were very few female riders, as well as talking about racing I also talked about my illness”.

The project “Running for a breath” and the book

Rachele thus tries to exploit her image as a pilot to raise funds in support of cystic fibrosis research: and she succeeds. Gadgets, lotteries and events work, to the point that she decides to create something more structured. Running for a breath was born in 2016, an information and fundraising project that has today made it possible to raise 350,000 euros for research. And which has now also become a book, the proceeds of which will always go to the research carried out by the Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis Research – ETS.

Inside are the experiences lived, the encounters along the way, the story of dreams fulfilled and those still in the drawer, together with those of the challenges that as a motor enthusiast and person with cystic fibrosis she had to face, and still faces. Because cystic fibrosis – a genetic disease that affects the CFTR gene, altering the secretions at the level of various organs, especially affecting the bronchi and lungs – does pose some challenges, and how. Starting with inflammation and infections, like the one that brought Rachele to the hospital in 2018 due to bad bacteria and forced her to interrupt the championship. “When you have cystic fibrosis, your plans are uncertain, and hospitalizations can also be long – recalls the pilot – I then fortunately improved, it was not the case for Angelica, a girl with the same disease as me who I met during my hospitalisation, who it helped me a lot because she had gone through what I was experiencing before me”.

Lots of training and challenges still to be faced

After that of 2018, there have been others of hospitalizations for Rachele, the last one about a month ago, again to undergo therapies against bacterial infections and clean up the lungs. Medicines, even the most innovative ones that have changed the history of this disease – to the point that today life expectancy exceeds 40 years, a figure unthinkable until a few decades ago – can in fact help to contain these complications only partially. Especially for a professional rally driver. “You need a lot of physical endurance, and for this I train every day to increase my physical prowess and fortunately I have good spirometry – she says – rallying means undergoing long races, with very high temperatures. You need a lot of strength, it’s a fascinating but also difficult sport”.

Alongside the stories of growth in the professional field and the Running for a breath project, there is room for something else in the book. It is understood when it comes to family and healthy carrier tests: it is estimated that there is one for every 30 people in the population. When two healthy carriers meet, the chance of having a child with the disease is 1 in 4 with each pregnancy (because both copies of the CFTR gene must be altered for the disease to manifest). “Not many cystic fibrosis patients have had children, and it’s not even very advisable. But it’s not that impossible, and this is another challenge that I would like to face, but step by step, when it will be”, concludes Rachele.