INTERAMNIA A QUATTRO RUOTE: ALL'ORIGINE DELLE GARE AUTOMOBILISTICHE SULLA COSTA TERAMANA

Drawing on established historical facts supported by an extensive bibliography, the authors highlight two important aspects of Teramo's motoring history: the prodromes of motoring development in Abruzzo starting in the 1920s and the development of the Circuit of Castellamare Adriatico.

In those years - aptly summed up with this historic cover featuring Enzo Ferrari at the Florio in ‘22 - there were three personalities who propelled Teramo and the entire region into the limbo of national motoring: Marquis Diego De Sterlich Aliprandi, Giovanni Spinozzi and Giacomo Acerbo.

When De Sterlich began his incredible sporting career as the "King of the Mountain" by triumphing in the third stage of the Circuito d'Italia Centrale, in a Diatto (22 October 1922), the automobile was already destined to revolutionise the society of the time: if until the beginning of the century the endothermic engine represented a novelty, within a few years the new means of transport excited all social classes.

This was immediately clear to Giovanni Spinozzi, also a driver and entrepreneur, the first president of the Automobile Club Abruzzo, based in Teramo, which saw the light on 15 May 1924. It was Spinozzi who set up the "Società per Autotrasporti Abruzzo", offering the entire province the chance to travel by road and making an effective contribution to the economic and social development of the entire territory.

The enthusiasm was such that less than two months after the ACI's Abruzzo office was established, the first edition of the Castellamare Adriatico Circuit was held on 13 July, with the victory of Enzo Ferrari.

It was Giacomo Acerbo, undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, who sealed his personal patronage in the first prologue race on 20 August 1923 (Rome-Castellamare).

Which was immediately named "Coppa Acerbo" by the press - as it was instituted in memory and honour of Tito Acerbo, Giacomo's brother who put up the famous Cup as a prize and about whom Gianfranco Cocciolito draws an almost unpublished profile - was run by the Teramo ACI until 1926.

From the following year, when the decree was signed to unify the two towns (Castellamare and Pescara Vecchia) under the name of Pescara, the race would run until 1961, still representing one of the most beautiful and fascinating competitions in the world.

Today, a century after those events, this book - Interamnia a quattro ruote - offers us the opportunity to consider the work, the sacrifices, the strength of a territory that through its men and its institutions began a life path tempered on determination, never detached from humility and fairness, character qualities for which the people of Abruzzo are recognised.

Text in Italian.