70 years have passed since 25 April 1954 when the first edition of the Coppa d’Oro sponsored by Shell was held on the new Imola circuit, the “Little Nurburgring”. On April 25th of the previous year, on a sunny spring day and in front of a large audience that had come from all over since dawn, the bishop of Imola Monsignor Carrara had raised the aspersion to bless the prototype of the new racetrack, with the president of the FMI Emanuele Bianchi, the mayor Veraldo Vespignani and the creator and deus ex machina of the Tre Monti circuit Checco Costa committed to lowering the checkered flag for the first race on the stupendous new fast mixed up and down hill close to the Santerno river, the GP Cones reserved for the 125, 250, 500 classes.
shy sun
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Another context the following year. On the night between 24 and 25 April 1954 it rained in much of Italy, with strong winds and hailstorms that hit the racetrack from the hills around Santerno. Then, in the morning, from the start of the first race, a shy sun appeared, drying the track but leaving the public (40,000 present despite the bad weather) on the Tosa hill and on the Rivazza hill with their feet in the mud. Even with 12 million lire in prizes, a record sum at the time, together with free expense reimbursement and accommodation, the start was missing many big names. This is also due to the concomitance of the Imola race with the race on the Mettet international circuit in Belgium, reducing the starters for the three classes to around thirty. In fact, at 11am there are only nine riders at the start of the 350 with only four official “faired” bikes, the Nortons of the Englishman Ray Amm and the Australian Keith Campbell and the Guzzis of the other Australian Ken Kavanagh and the Roman who later became Milanese Enrico Lorenzetti (nicknamed “Filaper” Lombard term for “filaccia” due to his tall and thin physical constitution) who will win that first Imola race in a sprint over Kavanagh, also marking the fastest lap at an average of 137.867 km/h. Public on the track to celebrate the drivers on a chariot pulled by a tractor for the lap of honour.
the super storm
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After the lunch break, start of the 250 with 12 riders including the twin-cam Guzzis of Montanari and Agostini, the twin-cylinder 2-stroke DKWs of Lottes and the Adler of Luttemberger, in addition to the seven private Guzzis. A strong wind blows and a violent storm hits the track, forcing the public to flee. Montanari doesn’t give up the lead even after a pit stop for a spark plug change. In the end, it’s not easy to fill the first three places on the flooded stage. The storm doesn’t let up and there is discussion about whether or not to start the most awaited race, the 500. The public is pressing. It is decided to start with a world championship front row with the new partially faired 4-cylinder Gileras by Masetti and Milani, with the Gilera ’53 model by Valdinoci, with the “mono” bell-faired Guzzi by Kavanagh, with the “naked” Nortons ” of Amm, Campbell, Laing, Wood, Collot, Bruguiere and the single-cylinder “Saturno” of Libero Liberati, the future world champion from Terni in 1957 on a 4-cylinder Gilera, who later died in a private road test on 5 March 1962. Battle between Milani and Masetti, with Amm in the wake. In the braking brawl at Tosa Milani goes to the ground leaving the way clear for Masetti who wins with hands raised ahead of Amm and Valdinoci. The storm goes away and people enter the paddock space, touching the racing bikes and talking with the riders. Imola begins like this.
checco’s work costs money
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Then, from 1955, the great leap in quality, starting with the 250 with all the official motorbikes of MV Agusta, Mondial, Morini on the track with the “bell” or “bird’s beak” fairings, with the first record of the 100 thousand present, with the first fatal accident: Ray Amm loses control of the new 4-cylinder MV at Rivazza. But that’s another story. But how did this story begin? We owe it all to Doctor Checco Costa (father of the creator of the Mobile Clinic, Doctor Claudio and of the historic speaker, the lawyer Carlo) who, with a handful of engine geeks, had already ventured into organizing international competitions in 1948 by importing for the first time in Italy, in the humps of Castellaccio, motocross: until 1965 9 world championships and 5 European championships! But Checco’s heart and imagination, as early as 1947, aimed at speed, even at the “crazy idea” of creating a permanent “model” plant. As Claudio “Dottorcosta”, the founder of the Clinica Mobile (“doctorcosta”), masterfully writes: “This idea, like a fragile creature, was welcomed, helped, cradled and nourished by many, but only one was its father forever: Checco Costa”. And from ideas and words we soon moved on to facts. On 6 March 1950, the first blow of the pickaxe was given by the president of CONI Giulio Onesti. On 18-19 October 1952, the new structure was tested with Checco Costa and his inseparable friend Enzo Ferrari in front of everyone. With people like this nothing was virtual, but everything was transformed into real: for the first time the centuries-old quiet of the beautiful Imola park was shaken by the roar of racing engines, in an exciting Rossini crescendo.
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Imola apotheosis
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Between two wings of the cheering crowd, consecrated aces with superlative vehicles took to the track: Alberto Ascari on the Ferrari F1, Umberto Masetti on the 4-cylinder Gilera 500 and Enrico Lorenzetti with the Guzzi. Checco Costa was carried to triumph by the fans. The news went to newspapers all over the world. It was the apotheosis, the glorious beginning of the epic of the Santerno circuit with races that will mark the history of world motorcycling and motor racing. Marino Bartoletti writes in an admirable preface to the valuable volume by Angelo Dal Pozzo and Claudio Ghini (“Checco Costa in Imola, passion for motorbikes” Bacchilega Editore): “Checco knew how to see far into the distance: perhaps because he was a son of the fields, he had the sense of a horizon that never ends. And above all he knew how to see “ahead”, very far ahead. Because he combined his passions with genius; his hopes to concreteness; his apparent lucid madness with the most disarming ease in transforming it into real facts. And it would be nothing if, in his unparalleled life and work path, he had not combined all this with an almost childish candor and enthusiasm, with a practically inimitable honesty and rigor. Checco was a child with an adult mustache; a wise and responsible puppy, a Peter Pan who had transformed Neverland into a Castle that only he could imagine”.
