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ROAMERS – Cars Stories | Ep 02: Everything’s Perfect
ROAMERS – Cars Stories
Everything’s Perfect
Words Christian Parodi / Photo Jay Tomei
That sun wasn’t even as hot as it would have been in a couple of months, but it still managed to convey its presence thanks to some shy ray filtering through the branches of the trees. “Shut up a second guys” – I shouted at my colleagues. They still hadn’t realized the magic that was hovering around us. The next second you could feel the leaves shaking by the wind and the excitement that began to rise, imagining how those curves have carved in stone the names of great rally legends.
Although it has become a proper annual pilgrimage, the Col de Turini keeps intact an undisputed charm that tells of adventurous competitions, but also of solitary climbs like ours of today, accompanied by the rumble of an engine that with the deepest respect is well aware that once the wheels touch this sacred asphalt, putting one bend after the other behind your back is much more than just moving from one point to another. Still in complete silence, with your eyes contemplating a dense valley of vegetation interrupted only by an asphalt gut that looks like a snake chasing its own tail, drawing aesthetically perfect switchbacks and letting the mind imagine how to deal with them, idealizing the shape of a car that slides along until it reaches the next stopping point.
In this moment everything has reached a wonderful joint, exceeding the expectations of those who had not yet had the luck to tread this ground and reinvigorating the thrill of experiencing once again one of the few roads that more than any other identify the ultimate meeting point between the world of racing and the opportunity to drive the same road with a regularly registered car. A gust of wind stronger than the others brings me back to reality and with renewed amazement I realize that everything is still as it was a moment ago, the precise moment in which my imagination was gobbling bends, almost simulating the sound of an engine that downshifts and increases the gears as the mumbling exhaust increase its volume, just before the tires screech coming out of corners with your gaze in full focus for the next curve to attack.
When people ask me what is special about mountain roads, I would like to be able to really give a universal answer, but I believe that each of us has a different reason connecting to these unique places. It is not a simple matter of curves, but a sensation that manages to get inside without you being able to notice it. Once here, everything changes, and you can’t do without it anymore. You try to capture that moment with a photograph, as if you want to freeze the emotion, but it is too elusive and slips away like water between your fingers, leaving only the memory of what you have lived. Here you feel that irrepressible need to throw yourself into that image that has trapped space and time, but which cannot go further. The call of the mountain grips your soul and when you come back it is exactly there where you have left it.
Everything is perfect. And no matter the weather conditions, the car nor the company, because this journey within the journey is an integral part of something that is now beating inside your chest. With a pinch of fear you are almost afraid that over time it will change, fade, or even decrease its intensity if you have draw out full hands into this container of emotions, but it will not happen. Because everything is incredibly perfect here. As much as it will be tomorrow.
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