Faster, page 3
What René really wanted was to take command of his family’s Clément-Bayard. On occasion, his father, Alfred, allowed him to stand between his knees and hold the steering wheel of the colossal touring car as they zipped around town. René craved a chance to drive before he thought to question why.
War against Germany in 1914 broke the idyllic spell of his childhood. Alfred was drafted into the French army. Soldiers requisitioned his Clément-Bayard. Within months, their mother, Clelia, and her three children had to flee their home in Mantes-la-Jolies, outside Paris, in advance of the Kaiser’s troops. At Gare de Lyon, they tried to board a passenger train to Nice, but there were no available seats. Instead, they were directed to a line of cattle cars heading south. With passengers packed to its filthy walls, the train took over twenty-four hours to reach the coast. It moved so slowly that nine-year-old René often jumped from the car and walked alongside the train for fresh air. In Nice, then Vesoul, the young family waited for Alfred to return from the war.
Reunited after the peace, the family settled in Paris. Business blossomed again, now in raincoats and fine garments, but Alfred was unwell. On the front, he had suffered several German gas attacks, and his lungs never recovered. In 1923, the Dreyfus family returned to Nice, now a thriving cosmopolitan city, overlooking azure-blue waters, with all the bohemian culture of Paris but with better weather. René was eighteen. For fun, he went from racing bicycles to racing motorcycles. Cars were the natural next step.
Alfred urged his two sons to think toward the future, promising to set them up together in a business. René thought launching a movie theater would be glamorous: premieres, Sunday matinees, stars of the silver screen at his doorstep. Maurice wanted to buy a wholesale paper company. People might like the movies, but they needed paper. Within days of investing in the pragmatic choice for his sons, Alfred died of a heart attack.
René felt unmoored by the loss of his father and obligated to an enterprise he never wanted. The family sold their house and moved into an apartment. Their father’s grand De Dion-Bouton V8 torpedo had already been replaced by a two-seater, 6-hp Mathis, an easier vehicle for René to drive around Nice and nearby towns to sell paper. Maurice remained in the shop to handle everything else.
On the sinuous, treacherous roads outside Nice, René schooled himself in how to drive fast—and loved the flood of euphoria he experienced being in tune with the Mathis as they careened through the hills. He and Maurice joined the Moto Club de Nice, home of what René called the “sporting young bloods” compared to the graybeards at the Automobile Club de Nice.
COURTESY OF THE DREYFUS FAMILY
Maurice Dreyfus and his father, Alfred, in the Mathis, the first car René ever raced
René entered his first race in 1924, forging his mother’s name to do so. His eighty-year-old grandfather helped him fit a huge exhaust pipe to the Mathis and strip off the fenders. Maurice rode aboard as mechanic, always the protective brother. Uncontested in his category, René won the 750-cc class of the Circuit de Gattières. Clelia learned of his victory and forced her son to sell the Mathis for a sturdy Hotchkiss touring car. Undeterred, René competed in the Hotchkiss.
Conversation with his fellow Moto Club members and visits to local garages convinced René that he needed a Bugatti so that he could enter the better races. By one calculation, Bugattis won 1,045 races between 1925 and 1926. But the cars were as temperamental and distinctive as their creator.
Ettore Bugatti, better known as “Le Patron,” was Italian by birth but had long ago moved to Molsheim, in northeastern France, to design and build automobiles. More artist than businessman, he was an inventive genius whose cars, including the little Brescia, had become the premier force in racing across Europe.
Before the Great War, while most car manufacturers were producing boxy-shaped behemoths whose big engines and overall weight were equated by their designers with better road handling, Bugatti thought the opposite. “Le poids, c’est l’ennemi [Weight is the enemy],” he said.
The Brescia, known in its original form as the Type 13, really came to the fore in the early 1920s. With a chassis only six and a half feet long, it was a “little box of speed” or a “giant killer” that weighed less than half a ton and could reach a maximum speed of 70 mph. Some praised its “silk smooth” four-cylinder engine and likened the car to a “marvel in the matter of weight disposition and suspension” that “held down to its course like a chalk mark on the road.”
Others questioned its jerky clutch, clumsy steering, mushy cable-operated brakes, and a ride that could “jar the back teeth out of a clothing store dummy.” An early driver stated it best: “I suspect that it’s rather like flying a Sopwith Camel. In the hands of a truly skilled pilot it is the ultimate winning machine, but it could easily be the death of someone less competent . . . Perhaps, like a Camel, it should be kept for a special breed of lunatic.”
René wanted the Brescia nonetheless. The Hotchkiss would simply no longer do, and like those early Sopwith Camel pilots, he believed himself untouchable. He pitched his brother—then his mother—to the idea that in the “nimble Brescia” he would be able to “get around faster and see more customers.” Clelia did not buy what René was selling but agreed.
The Dreyfus family arrived at the Bugatti dealership in the center of Nice. It was run by Ernest Friderich, one of Le Patron’s earliest champion drivers, who was happy to sell another Brescia to another upstart with glory in his eyes. It seemed that every young man in town wanted to become the next Georges Boillot, the two-time French Grand Prix champion, whose steely gaze and walrus mustache had been splashed across newspapers on a daily basis before he died a hero’s death in a 1916 dogfight against seven German Fokkers. René was susceptible to the draw of becoming a national champion, but the truth was that for him racing meant having the freedom to do what he loved: drive fast and win races.
After his grandson’s 1926 triumph at La Turbie, René’s grandfather delicately clipped out any mentions of René from several Nice newspapers and glued them onto the first page of a large scrapbook, taking care to note the publication name and date of every clip in his fine script. Over the next few years, one page after the next in the scrapbook filled with clippings of René’s wins or placements in hill climbs and provincial races across the Riviera. The shelves in his bedroom became crowded with trinkets, plaques, and trophies. He had yet to earn any income from his efforts, but he was now a dominating presence in the local events, particularly since Louis Chiron, his fellow Moto Club member, had graduated from the little leagues.
A half-dozen years René’s senior, Louis had the looks of a film star, with the accompanying ego. In the early 1920s, while trying to make it as a race driver, he had earned his living as a dancer for hire at the Hôtel de Paris in Monaco. Wooing the wives of tycoons or minor royalty was his particular skill, and depending on who one asked, a Russian princess or a rich American widow had financed the first car that set him up in the sport. They called Louis “The Old Fox” for a reason.
He was a daring but calm driver, always “poised, handling his car as if it were made of glass, changing gear delicately, with two fingers.” A series of win-place-or-shows caught the attention of Ettore Bugatti, who signed Chiron to his official factory team.
Every year, auto manufacturers like Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Fiat, Talbot, Delage, and Mercedes hired the best drivers for their stables. They earned salaries and splits of appearance money and prizes and piloted the most advanced cars, engineered by the sharpest minds and serviced by experienced crews. Team managers chose when and where the drivers competed, handled all the logistics, and made sure there was a spot on the starting grid for them.
There was always a race to be run. Every season, the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR), the association of the various national automobile clubs of Europe, determined the formula that cars and races had to adhere to in order to be part of the official Grand Prix circuit. This formula could stipulate the length of the race, engine size or design, overall car weight or dimensions, types of fuel allowed, and other factors—all to enforce some degree of uniformity. Among the events, there were “Les Grandes Épreuves” like the French and Italian Grands Prix, which earned drivers points toward the European Championship, as well as two dozen other races.
Teams also participated in sports-car races in which vehicles had to be fitted with lights, fenders, and other road equipment that a driver would find on a typical highway. A win at some of these events, including the Targa Florio, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Mille Miglia, were coveted the same as a Grand Prix triumph. Then there were the hill climbs like La Turbie and endurance contests like the Monte Carlo Rally.
To pursue his dream of joining a factory team, René abandoned the charade of working in the paper business with Maurice. The Bugatti dealer Friderich took René under his wing and managed his race schedule for a split of expenses and winnings. There were far more of the former than the latter. In 1929, Friderich secured René a spot in the inaugural Monaco Grand Prix, but the young driver was driving an outdated, underpowered Bugatti and barely ranked. Over the next year, he competed on an almost weekly basis, supported by his family and Friderich as he pushed for the race that would catapult him into the big time.
Monte Carlo was at its most alive after midnight. Incasinos, under glittering chandeliers, gamblers eyed roulette balls sweeping around tracks and dice tumbling across fields of green baize. All about the cliffside town, revelers danced and drank in innumerable boîtes de nuit, while others toasted their good fortune under the twinkling lights of their sailing yachts, which rocked on the horseshoe bay.
It was April 2, 1930, and René Dreyfus should have been asleep—he needed the rest. But he was awake in his hotel room, wrestling with doubts over his chances in the upcoming “Race of a Thousand Corners.” In only its second year, the Monaco Grand Prix was already considered a premier event because of its sinuous 1.97-mile course through the hillside heart of Monte Carlo. It was the world’s most glamorous “round-the-houses” circuit, and its 100 laps were a true testbed for drivers and their cars.
The month before, René and Friderich took the leap and purchased a 2.3-liter Type 35B, a three-year-old variation on the successful Bugatti race car, fitted with a supercharger. By drawing in compressed air and fuel from the carburetor, compressing the mixture, and blowing it into the engine’s eight cylinders, the Bugatti’s supercharger allowed more fuel to be pumped into each chamber, creating a bigger explosion when the mixture was ignited by the spark plugs and thus more power from the piston stroke. René entered two small races and won both. He felt like a “child with a new and better toy.”
Le Patron had brought another variation on the model for his factory “works” team: the two-liter Type 35C. It was also supercharged but sported a higher-revving, shorter-stroke engine and a special axle ratio for better low-speed wheel torque, which would be helpful in a 100-lap race with hairpin bends, corkscrew descents, and uphill straights.
Before dawn, unable to sleep, René’s mind sprang on an idea. His car had a 26.5-gallon tank, which would require refueling after sixty laps. If he fitted an extra tank, then he could skip the pits and save a couple of minutes. That could be the difference that meant a top finish.
Still in his pajamas, he hurried down the landing to his team manager’s room. Groggy and irritated, Friderich answered the door. “Come on, we have some work to do,” René said before rattling out his idea.
Friderich stared at his enthusiastic partner, two decades his junior. Finally, he said, “Good night. I’m going back to bed.”
René pushed into the room. He only needed a nine-gallon tank.
“Where’ll we put it?” Friderich asked, his bulldog jowls flapping. “On a trailer?”
“No, no. In the cockpit—empty seat—under the canvas—no one will see it.” René never considered the risk of carrying a jostling tank of gas beside him as a passenger.
“It simply won’t work,” Friderich said. “That extra tank will just be deadweight. It will get in your way. You will have to stop anyway to clean your goggles, to get a drink of water—and get more gasoline.”
No tank, no race, René threatened. None of the race’s rules forbade it.
The two woke up Maurice to mediate their predawn standoff. Finally, Friderich said, “It’s you who’s driving,” and the three men went straight to the garage to figure out how to make it work.
Early on the morning of the race, April 6, René drank a café au lait, ate a croissant, and then went down to the pits on the promenade. The dawn sun glittered off the Mediterranean. He and Friderich double-checked everything on his car, from the engine down to their special preparations for the second tank.
Afterward, René took a walk to calm his nerves. Monaco’s small population had mushroomed in anticipation of the race, and spectators were gathered everywhere he looked: in the grandstands; on hotel terraces; aboard yachts, fishing vessels, and dinghies jamming the harbor; across the hillsides of “The Rock of Monaco,” where the Prince’s palace stood; and on rooftops and along every foot of the course, which had been fortified with low walls of sandbags. The whole town was a natural amphitheater. At certain points, onlookers could almost stretch out and graze the cars with their fingers, an immediacy René found intoxicating.
René returned to the pits and shared some cold chicken and Bordeaux with Maurice under the shade of a palm tree. Officials waved at the drivers to bring their cars to their places. The grid had been drawn by lots, and René was in the fourth row. There were seventeen competitors, and given the tight course, early positioning was critical.
This year the organizers had set up parimutuel betting on the race, and booths on the streets were already besieged by gamblers. It seemed that everybody, including the gendarmes, had a tip or a shred of gossip about the best driver or car. The hometown favorite Chiron paid two-to-one. A gamble on René earned three times that amount. René was badgered over the last few days of practice: “Think you’ve got a chance?”
As tradition had dictated since 1900 and the inaugural Gordon Bennett Cup, the cars were painted in colors based on their driver’s or team’s nationality—blue for French, white for German, red for Italian, green for British, and yellow for Belgian.
In his spotless overalls and crash helmet—the first worn in Europe—Louis passed René with a look, but no greeting. It was race day, and on such the Monégasque had no friends. He and the other drivers knew about the extra tank in René’s car, but they scoffed that it would make no difference for the young independent.
René took one last check of his car, then bent down to ensure his shoelaces were triple-knotted. In a practice lap, a loop on his laces had caught on the clutch and brake pedal, and he had nearly jumped a curbstone into a wall. He shoehorned himself into the cockpit and took a sip from the long drinking straw sunk into his thermos of iced cola.
Friderich came to his side. “Don’t force too much at the beginning. Wait until the twentieth lap. Then your engine will be warm.” René nodded. Then he was alone. He adjusted his white cloth helmet and goggles and tried to settle down. Pandemonium surrounded him: the static squeal of the loudspeakers, the band playing, spectators stomping in the grandstands, the sudden churning of engines and coughs of smoke. He tried to force all of it from his mind.
At the line, the starter, Charles Faroux, raised a single finger, alerting the drivers that it was one minute until the start. The editor of L’Auto, France’s preeminent sporting newspaper, and the founding director of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Faroux was his country’s doyen of motor racing. Wearing his trademark straw hat and an elegant suit, he held the red-and-white flag of Monaco behind his back, ready for the start.
From the sidelines, Maurice yelled good luck. René also spotted his mother and his sister Suzanne, who was eight months pregnant, and waved to them. Then, with a blur of sound and fury, the race began. The seventeen cars bolted wheel to wheel down the promenade toward the right-hand, cambered curve before the modest Sainte-Dévote Chapel. Coming out of the bend, René shifted into third to ascend Avenue de Monte Carlo. Louis was already in the lead. René was far in the back, but there was no room to pass in the mass of cars shooting up the 600-yard, inclined straight at 93 mph, looking altogether like a “multicolored serpent.” René glanced at his tachometer—5,300 rpm. Hold back, he thought. Save the cold engine.
At a slight bend in the climb, René punched down to first, his path impeded by a yellow Bugatti and a monolithic white Mercedes. Then, as he later recounted, it was back up “to second in the pullout, then third, wonder about fourth, then suddenly back down through the gears again.” At the top, now high above the water on the city’s cliffsides, he banked left alongside the Hôtel de Paris, then through the manicured gardens in front of the neo-Baroque confection that was the Casino de Monte Carlo. He tore down a short straight followed by three hairpin bends in succession—right—left—right—as he approached a “dive into a dull, stone-side ravine,” as one writer put it, toward the seaside railway station. There were moments during those narrow turns when mere inches separated the nose of his Bugatti from the car in front. Another right curve at the water led into a 130-yard tunnel lit by flickering arc lights. As he accelerated through the soft long curve, the bellow of the engines in the arched stone tunnel reverberated inside his skull. Any errant tug at his wheel and his Bugatti would crash against the sides of the contained chute, tumble end over end, and his life would be over.
Emerging from the tunnel into the open again, he dashed down a short straight bordered with tamarisk trees. He remained at the tail end of the pack. A rapid left-right jog of the wheel brought him through the chicane. Then he burst along the harbor, swung a left at Tabac Corner, sped beside the water’s edge, past the pits, turned a hairpin at the gasworks, and he was racing back toward the start.
