“When legend becomes reality, print legend,” said the iconic phrase about the construction of myths in John Ford’s classic western. The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance (1962). And that is what the RACC, alma mater, godfather and promoter of the motorsport in Catalonia, and one of the progenitors of the current Formula 1 in Barcelona. the book La Penya Rhin, the RACC and Formula 1. A story of passion and perseverance (Viena Edicions), promoted by the mobility club with 800,000 members, details the 116 years of automobile racing in Barcelona, as well as the city’s historical relationship with the great circus, from Tazio Nuvolari to Max Verstappen.
The origin
“We had to give value to the history of the city, the RACC and F1, recognize the efforts of the people who promoted the first races,” summarized Josep Mateu.
“The idea of making this book arose a year ago, when there was a lot of noise about Madrid and F1,” Josep Mateu, president of the RACC, discovered at the presentation yesterday in Barcelona. “It was necessary to give value to the history of the city, the RACC and F1, to recognize the efforts of the people who promoted the first races of 1908 of the Catalunya Cup on the Vilafranca circuit, those of the Terramar circuit of Sitges in 1923 that were made by some enlightened people, the elites of the time, the Penya Rhin and the Pedralbes circuit, the Montjuïc circuit and the Montmeló circuit with Sebastià Salvadó; a history of pioneers and innovators,” summarized Mateu, who highlights the contribution that F-1 has had “in the transformation and economic and social growth of Catalonia.”
Image of the urban circuit along Barcelona’s Diagonal in the 1949 GP Penya Rhin, precursor to the F1 race
The result of this editorial commission from the RACC to the journalists Josep Maria Miret, Valentí Fradera and Josep Viaplana is a very complete 320-page book, with original photographs and of great documentary value of the car races that have taken place in Catalonia since the beginning of the century. XX.
“If today we have F-1 in Catalonia it is because a group of crazy people from Penya Rhin spent money on bringing races to Barcelona,” explains Fradera, a journalist specialized in the history of motorsports. “Without that legacy, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya would not have been a country project, it did not come about through spontaneous generation.”
Start of the 1973 Spanish GP race in Montjuïc
Those crazy people from the Penya Rhin – the name adopted from the disappeared Rhin café in Plaza Catalunya – were a group of friends, businessmen passionate about racing, such as Frick Armangué, Joaquim Molins or Salvador Fàbregas, who organized some of the Great Races between 1916 and 1954. Awards in Barcelona. His promotional work was taken up by the RACC. The first race of the F-1 World Championship in Barcelona, in Pedralbes, in 1951 is due to them.
Works on the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmeló, in 1990
The book, which has the collaboration of journalists Raymond Blancafort, Josep Lluís Merlos, Emilio Pérez de Rozas, Francesc Rosés, Fabio Marchi and Toni López Jordà from La Vanguardia, reviews episodes such as Ferrari’s debut outside Italy in 1948 in the Pedralbes circuit, Fangio’s visit to Barcelona and victory in 1951, the success and tragedy of Montjuïc, the creation of the Montmeló circuit, the Alonso phenomenon, or the Joves Pilots program to promote a Catalan pool of drivers who would reach F1.
Fernando Alonso, King Juan Carlos I and Pedro de la Rosa at the 2001 Spanish GP in Montmeló
With a first edition of 1,000 copies, the book can be purchased at Abacus cooperative establishments.
#Nuvolari #Verstappen #history #racing #Barcelona #book
