On this day: celebrating the life of Bernd Rosemeyer
He somehow convinced the team into signing him as a car racer, but they were anxious about running him in its first race of the year, at Avus – a circuit that was in reality two straight stretches of autobahn conjoined by 180deg turns, one of them banked to the extent that it resembled the motorcycling ‘wall of death’ on which Rosemeyer had once wowed crowds.
His most impressive win was surely the 1936 Eifel Grand Prix at the infamous Nürburgring. He had overtaken theof Nuvolari from a rainy start, and then thick fog descended. Everyone slowed – except for Rosemeyer, who was now going 10sec faster than his Italian rival. The pinnacle of his racing career came in 1937, as the Germans headed to New York for the Vanderbilt Cup. The tight, twisty circuit was far from suited to these cars, but Rosemeyer somehow pulled off a famous win, triumphing over the Americans with his driving as well as his innocent donning of knee-length socks, shorts and a green Tyrolean hat.
Perhaps he should have taken that an omen, but his desire and enthusiasm for speed and daring could never be dampened. Despite the arrival of his first child, a son, in early 1938, he elected to attend another record-attempt session.