Sport: The Last Race

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Out to the Country. In 1936, Nuvolari went to America and casually won the Vanderbilt Cup race, beating the U.S.'s Wilbur Shaw and Mauri Rose, later three-time Indianapolis champions. But time, which Tazio had always flouted, was catching up with him. After World War II, which he spent in Mantua laid low by tuberculosis, he attempted a comeback. Trying for his third Mille Miglia victory in 1948. he was a lonely, ill man. He kept the lead, despite the progressive loss of his Ferrari's bumpers, hood, mudguards and seat cushions. With little more left than its wheels and motor, the tortured car gave up. Nuvolari lost, but not because he "went out to the country" (an ironic term for going off the road).

Once he had said: "Without a motor under my feet, it's hard to face death." Last year he had a stroke that partly paralyzed him. Last week, after another stroke, Tazio Nuvolari, 61, finally met death, but not the way he had always wanted it. He died in bed.

In his mile-long funeral procession at Mantua, Nuvolari's bier rested on a flag-draped car chassis, pushed by some of modern racing's greatest names—Alberto Ascari, Luigi Villoresi, Juan Fangio. They buried II Maestro's scarred body, its bones marred by countless fractures, in his gay racing togs, his favorite detachable steering wheel at his side.