RENZO GIUGNI:

THE SHOP, INSTEAD OF THE BAR

It was the winter of 1971, evening. After work, instead of hitting the bear, my dad and I would hunker down in the shop and try to bring a passion to life. That’s how our first chassis came about, the Sprinbok. And to think that until the year before, dad could’ve cared less about cars; his life-long passion had been fishing.

Not me; my friends and I had been into racing for a while by then, getting by however we could. Back then traffic was nowhere close to how it is today and there weren’t any automatic speed controls, so we’d just ride our cars out to the A1 highway that was under construction and we’d improvise risky drag racing duels on the Beltway between Ravenna and Lugo. After destroying my second car and breaking my arm, I got to thinking there had to be a better way to race. A friend of mine was already racing karts, so I decided to try as well. That’s how I discovered a passion that I never lost. My mom and dad at first were dead set against it. It was my uncle who got me my first kart, of course clashing with my parents over it.