Ada Pace

Ada Pace (in the car) and Elio Zagato in Monza in 1961

Ada Pace in the Osca MT4 ; on her victorious journey from Trieste to Opicina in 1959

Ada Pace next to a Ferrari 250 GT ; during training for the Targa Florio 1962

Ada "Sayonara" Pace (born February 16, 1924 in Rivoli ; † November 15, 2016 ) was an Italian racing driver .

Private

Ada Pace was the daughter of a Turin craftsman. In the early 1960s she was with Giulio Cabianca engaged . After his death during a test drive in Modena in June 1961 , she started with the red helmet design until the end of her career. Another stroke of fate struck her in 1972 when her eight-year-old adopted son Cesare had a fatal accident while playing.

Career as a racing driver

Ada Pace was enthusiastic about many sports in her youth. She played basketball , took part in sport shooting competitions and was interested in various forms of athletics .

Her passion for motorsport arose after the end of World War II . She owned one of the first Vespas sold and drove the 98 so successfully that she was appointed to the works team by the Piaggio management team. In 1949 she started at the International Six-Day Race and switched to automobile sport in 1950.

Success quickly set in and her first overall victory in the Turin – Sanremo road race in April 1951 was the start of a multitude of curiosities that followed her race victories. Pace was registered under the pseudonym Sayonara (later her nickname) and was a big problem for the organizers and their conservative parents. The former had no protocol on how to greet a woman on the podium and the latter could not reconcile it with the strict morals of the time to see their unmarried daughter celebrated in a group of drivers and mechanics. Then Pace drove up in her Fiat 1500 6C and her mother in the passenger seat in front of the podium and received the victory bouquet while sitting in the car. Ada Pace became the most successful Italian racing driver of the early 1950s. She won a large number of national road races and long had to grapple with protests from her inferior men. When the second and third placed drivers protested again after their success at a race in Lumezzane in 1957, the organizers intervened. The technical delegate was Renzo Castagneto , the dreaded Technical Director of the Mille Miglia , who had all three cars examined. The result was the disqualification of the second and third placed driver due to violation of the technical regulations on their emergency vehicles. At the 1957 Mille Miglia she had an accident with her Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce . After the marshal did not want to let her go any further, she swam across an adjacent river to convince the race management over the phone of her fitness to drive from a post station. A race steward who had rushed up prevented them from continuing their journey and sent the visibly injured driver to a hospital for control.

In 1959 she won the hill climb from Trieste to Opicina and in 1960 the racing class for sports cars up to 1.15 liters at the Targa Florio . Together with Giancarlo Castellina that was eleventh overall place in the Osca S1100 . She also won the Coppa d'Oro di Modena in 1960 and the Campagnana Vallelunga in 1962 .

The last few years of her career were marked by serious accidents. At the Monza 12-hour race in 1961 , her Alfa Romeo overturned several times after a driving error in the Curva Grande. The car remained destroyed on the roof and Ada Pace was able to escape from the wreck by kicking the rear window, which caught fire and burned out a little later. After another accident in 1965, she resigned. At the Sanremo Rally , the works Lancia she was driving crashed into a truck parked at the side of the track. She was able to get out of the wreck unharmed and upon her arrival at the finish area declared her retirement from active racing.

statistics

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1956	Gilberte Thirion	Alfa Romeo Giulietta SV	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
						16
1957		Alfa Romeo Giulietta SV	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
					DNF
1958		Alfa Romeo Giulietta SV	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
					15th
1959	Racing Club 19th	Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Veloce Zagato	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
				DNF
1960	Nineteen Racing Club	Osca S1100	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM
					11
1961	Milano Racing Club	Lotus Eleven	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	PES
							DNF
1962		Fiat-Abarth 700	DAY	SEB	SEB	MAY	TAR	BER	ONLY	LEM	TAV	CCA	RTT	ONLY	BRI	BRI	PAR
						10
1963	Ada Pace	Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero	DAY	SEB	SEB	TAR	SPA	MAY	ONLY	CON	ROS	LEM	MON	WIS	TAV	FRE	CCE	RTT	OVI	ONLY	MON	MON	TDF	BRI
						DNF

literature

• Hans-Jörg Götzl: Mille Miglia. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-613-02562-0 .

Web links

Commons : Ada Pace  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ada Pace at Historic Racing
• Ada Pace at Racing Sports Cars
• On the death of Ada Pace (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael John Lazzari, Giuliano Musi, Donne da corsa , Maglio Editore, San Giovanni in Persiceto, 2014 (Italian)
2. ↑ Ada Pace in Ruoteclassiche, February 1990
3. ↑ Leonardo Acerbi, Mille Miglia Story: 1927-1957, 2012 (English)
4. ^ Coppa d'Oro di Modena 1960
5. ↑ Campagnana Vallelunga 1962