History’s Most Spectacular and Dangerous Road Races

Stirling Moss said the Mille Miglia—a 1000-mile lap of Italy, held from 1927 to ’38 and 1947 to ’57—was the only race that frightened him. As speeds rose, the Mille grew increasingly deadly. A 1957 crash killed 10, five of whom were children.

The best way to promote business on your freshly paved Mexican highway? A race! La Carrera was contested by motorsport legends from 1950 to 1954. Impossibly dangerous and romantic, the event suffered more than two dozen deaths in its short run. Politics, as well as fallout from Le Mans 1955, ended the race.

A high-society Long Island affair, it ran from 1904 to 1910. Early races suffered spectator-interference issues, as crowd control apparently hadn’t been considered yet. In 1906, a spectator died trying to get close to a passing car, fore­shadowing a century of rallying disasters.

The last truly dangerous race. Motorcycle racers risk death on a 37.73-mile course that winds through sleepy brick-walled villages. Peter Hickman averaged a record 136 mph there this year. Death is a constant on the island, with 267 riders lost since the TT Mountain Course was first used in 1911.

Held in 1903 and set to be one of the biggest races in motorsport’s then-short history. The cars were far faster than anticipated, leading to many fatalities, including that of Marcel Renault. Paris-Madrid became known as the “Race of Death” and never made it past Bordeaux.

This Sicilian road race spanned from the dawn of auto­mobiles to the rise of sports prototypes. In 1972, racer and noted hard-ass Helmut Marko called it “insane.” As part of the World Sportscar Championship from 1955 to 1973, Targa attracted the world’s fastest cars. Imagine a Porsche 908/3 flat out on dusty two-lanes. Insane, indeed.

Fast and narrow with huge elevation changes and, astoundingly, a cobblestone hairpin after a particularly fast downhill, Rouen was a street circuit that held the French Grand Prix five times from 1952 to 1968. Jo Schlesser died here in ’68 after crashing in his magnesium-­chassis Honda, which burned uncontrollably.