Round 3 of the 2012 running of the Mille Miglia saw only 4 cars make the start. Ferrari fielded two cars, the Touring-bodied 166MM of Gentleman Jim Johnson and the Abarth Spyder of Russell Mill. Lancia was well represented by the immaculately prepared D24 of Count Ary Barbosa while the British fans cheered on the Jaguar XK120 piloted by Roy “Salvadori” Martz.
At the start of the race, the Count’s brakes failed on the Lancia, which resulted in much time lost on pit road. Once the problem was fixed, Ary roared back into the fray, but the 166MM of Jim Johnson had built up a sizeable lead. Russell’s Abarth Spyder was still hampered by a less than perfect setup and was running laps off the pace of the other cars.
Jim kept up a blistering pace, lapping almost ¼ second faster than Roy and Ary and making few mistakes. Ary and Roy put up a fierce battle for second but were outmatched by the lead Ferrari. Russell finally crossed the finish line as the other teams were breaking down their pit boxes.
Gentleman Jim has overtaken Count Ary for the overall lead, but as they say, “He who leads at Rome…..”.
On to Brescia!
The recorded race can be viewed at our Ustream.tv channel:https://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22378831 (starts at 1hr mark).