A Race with Love and Death by Richard Williams

Author:Richard Williams [Williams, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

The first half of July saw a clash in the racing calendar. In Europe, the Belgian Grand Prix was being held at Spa-Francorchamps. But on the other side of the Atlantic, the Vanderbilt Cup offered a rare opportunity for publicity in the United States. Both Mercedes and Auto Union decided to split their teams between the two events. Showing the significance they placed on success in front of an American audience, Neubauer and Uhlenhaut crossed the Atlantic accompanied by Caracciola, their most famous driver, and Seaman, who would be able to speak to journalists and broadcasters in their own language. Von Brauchitsch, Lang and Kautz went to Spa. Dick obtained a new passport, issued by the British consulate in Munich, in which a temporary US visa was stamped.

In 1904 the inaugural Vanderbilt Cup, held over a 30-mile circuit of public roads on Long Island, had become the first international road race ever held in the United States. Gradually it had adapted itself until, by 1937, it was being run at the Roosevelt Raceway on Long Island, an artificial 3.3-mile track on an old airfield. Not only was the prize money considerable – $20,000 for first place, down to $1,400 for tenth – but the prestige value to the visitors, both for the winning manufacturer and for the international reputation of German engineering, was potentially enormous.

The teams embarked at Bremerhaven on an ocean liner that, four years earlier, had held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing. Between its two funnels, the SS Bremen of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line featured a catapult to launch a small mail-carrying Heinkel seaplane, which could be sent off to arrive at the destination port several hours ahead of the ship itself. Two years earlier, anti-Nazi demonstrators had stormed the ship at its pier in New York and torn down its swastika flag, throwing it into the Hudson River.

Rudolf Caracciola came on board when the Bremen docked in Cherbourg, accompanied by his new wife. Since Chiron refused to propose, Baby Hoffmann had accepted Rudi’s offer of marriage. A most elegant couple, they were married in Castagnola, on Lake Lugano, where they planned to build a villa. ‘He had kept it very quiet, though I knew they were pretty friendly,’ Seaman wrote to Monkhouse. ‘Personally I think it will make an excellent match, for she is a very intelligent and charming lady and I think they are well suited to each other.’ She had already shown herself to be a practical asset to the team, adept as a timekeeper in the pits, manipulating stopwatches and keeping a lap chart up to date.

The Auto Union party included Dr Feuereissen, Bernd and Elly Rosemeyer, Ferdinand Porsche and Professor Robert Eberan von Eberhorst, the designers, with Dr Porsche’s son, Ferry, and Ghislaine Kaes, his nephew and secretary. Other occupants of the first-class cabins were Bodo Lafferentz, a Nazi official who, as leader of the Kraft Durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) movement, was a co-director with Porsche of the People’s

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