10/09/2023 - Stony Brook University New York - VANDERBILT CUP

At the Stony Brook University on the occasion of the Italian Auto Week, the Tazio Nuvolari Museum will be present by offering support to their events that will take place at the headquarters in Long Island from 12 to 24 September. A digital card, customized for the occasion "Vanderbilt Cup", will retrace the American deeds of our champion.

After defeating the unsurpassed German cars with Alfa Romeo in 1935, Nuvolari decides to cross the Atlantic in 1936 and attempt victory in the Vanderbilt Cup, to conquer the title of automotive hero of two worlds.

Tazio embarks in Genoa on the Rex, and upon arrival in New York there is half Broadway on the pier to greet the champion who poses for photographers in front of the skyscrapers of Manhattan with Francesco Tarabotto, the captain of the record liner, the Rex.

The organizers, with an unfailing sense of publicity, put at Nivola's disposal an elegant Lincoln car bearing a large inscription: "Tazio Nuvolari".

The Roosevelt Field race promises to be tough. On the brand new dirt track that the Americans built in one hundred days on Long Island, 25 miles from Manhattan, spending twenty million dollars.

There is huge anticipation in New York for this race. The champions of the old continent throwing down the gauntlet to the American dragons in their lair is an exciting theme for the imagination of the stars and stripes public. American cars, shorter than Alfas, hold corners better. Not only that: they don't have a differential, and this, when cornering, is an advantage because it reduces the slip of the drive wheels. Bookmakers no longer accept bets on him.

At the first corner after the grandstand straight, Tazio takes the lead. After the first lap Nuvolari has already detached the second one by one hundred meters. Everyone else is behind the dust. On the fifth he begins to lap the latecomers. The race has no history, Nivola advances like a winner, giving driving lessons at every corner.

Nuvolari won after four and a half hours of racing at an hourly average of 106 kilometers, beating all of his rivals.

The New York newspapers covered the event on the front page with a photograph of Tazio embracing the enormous cup, which he slips inside, it is so big and he is small, and shakes the hand of the holder of the prize, George Vanderbilt, from which he receives the envelope with the check for twenty thousand dollars. In addition, Nuvolari won 36 of the 37 prizes up for grabs at the finish line in the intermediate laps. Daily Mirror, "'Leg' clues in suitor's home. Italian wins $85,000 race” – New York, Tuesday, October 13, 1936.

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