The question asked by most people is more or less the following: if the fastest car does not win, how do you win a Mille Miglia? To give a complete answer to this question the following is an introduction to the rules for regulated trials.

A warning: the average speed between one time check and the other, set by C.S.A.I., is 48 km/hr. To fast drivers this may seen slow and not very competitive. On the contrary, if we take into account that, except for ability trials, all the roads are open to traffic and that time is lost crossing the many historic town centres, in stops for petrol, adjustments and maintenance - remember that the youngest car running is thirty seven years old - the average speed can be easily defined as more than competitive.

The important thing is to never stop or at least to do so as little as possible. However trite it might seem, the most important advice to whoever wishes to participate in a regulated race, is to be as regular as possible.

The principle which differentiates regulated events from racing is very simple. The route must be completed in the pre-established time and not in the least time possible, arriving at the finishing line late or early makes no difference, both are penalized.

There are normally three components to a regulated race: Time Check, which in motoring terminology becomes "C.O.". Stamp Check, which becomes "C.T." and Ability Trial which we call "P.A.". To make it easier to understand we will use a practical example, a section of the Mille Miglia from Siena to Modena (see "driving chart").

The "radar" or "road-book", which are the notes including the route, times and distances to be completed envisage a C.O. in Siena and the next C.O. in Modena. One must cross the C.O. in Modena, according to the "radar" at 5h 14' and 58" (five hours, fourteen minutes and fifty eight seconds) after the time of transit at the C.O. in Siena, with a run of two hundred and thirty two kilometres. The route, as in the best Mille Miglia tradition, means crossing the towns of Siena and Florence, the Futa and the Raticosa passes and then Bologna. How can one be sure that none of the competitors, to gain time, might avoid stretches of the route? Simple, by putting C.T. (Stamp Checks) in the obligatory points of transit: in this case in Piazza del Campo in Siena, in front of the Duomo in Florence and under the Tower in Bologna. It is obvious that crossing these historic centres causes great loss of time, above all because, in this case the Highway Code must be respected. Once out of the urban centres and along roads with little traffic or closed to traffic, drivers are given the chance to clean their spark plugs by putting their foot on the accelerators and showing their driving skills in the P.A.

In this section, Siena-Modena, there are three P.A.'s: The first on Passo della Futa, the second in the Selva locality, between the two Passes, and the third on the Passo della Raticosa. What exactly is a P.A. ? It is a stretch of road, usually a few kilometres long, which should also in this case be completed in a set time. Compared to the C.O., where the team is given a precise transit time, the start of the P.A. is free. What actually happens is this: the time keepers synchronize two chronometers connected respectively to two pressure sensors (rubber tubes placed at the starting and finishing lines which trigger the chronometer at pressure by the front wheels of the car), positioning them at the beginning and end of the P.A. As the cars pass over them the printers connected to the chronometers correctly report the time and any early passage or delay. Penalties are given for every hundredth of a second difference from the set time.

Champions often split the second, that means a perfect transit to a hundredth of a second. Good drivers are those whose error is contained within half a second. If you wish to try, find yourself a stop watch, a friend also with a stopwatch, draw two lines on the ground at a distance of one hundred metres one from the other and try to complete the distance inside a time of your choice, between twenty and thirty seconds. Warning: it is forbidden to "block the wheels", that is to stop the car completely, otherwise there will be a heavy penalty.

According to the regulations, for both the P.A. and for the C.O. it is forbidden to stop within a hundred metres of the finishing line, as well as in the following fifty metres. The start of the hundred metres is indicated by a yellow sign, the finishing line by a red sign and the fifty metres by a beige coloured sign. The reason for this is simple. If a competitor arrives at the finishing line before his time of transit, he could position the front wheels one millimetre before the pressure device and wait for the moment to pass with maximum precision. On the contrary, not being able to stop, the operation is much more difficult and complicated. This means that the area near the pressure device must always be kept clear; and here follows the second regulation for fifty metres being the minimum distance necessary from the pressure device before braking.

So let's get back to our practical example; coming from Florence the Mille Miglia competitors find the first P.A. on the road up to the Futa, a few hundred metres after the sculpture in remembrance of the winner of four Mille Miglias, Clemente Biondetti. Six and a half kilometres must be completed in seven minutes and forty eight seconds. This time, as for that of the other P.A., must not be added nor subtracted from the time of completion for the whole section, as it is an integral part of it. After the Futa there are the two trials on the Raticosa, which are distinctive in that they are two joint P.A.'s, in the jargon called "start/stop". This means that the finishing line of the first trial is also the starting line of the second. This is to make life harder for navigators who have to use a stop watch for each trial. (this is a double trial, but along the route there are some triple and quadruple ones). This is why, in regulated races, navigators count as much as the drivers compared to other types of racing. The navigator must be capable of triggering the stop watch at the exact moment when the wheel passes over the pressure device and, at the same time, with a loud and firm voice, must count down the seconds for the driver who must pass over the line without even making a hundredth of a second mistake. Once the two trials are completed the competitors descend towards Bologna for a C.T. and then, driving along the Via Emilia they continue towards Modena. At this point of the race the problem is the following: how to get to the C.O. a few seconds early to synchronize watches?

"What devilry is this?" the novices now ask themselves What need is there to check if the competitor's watch shows the same time as that of the official time keepers? It's natural, as the practice of the time keepers, from one region to the other, to synchronize their watches with the RAI time signal, which means that between one C.O. and another, if they are not overseen by the time keepers of that town, there will be a few seconds difference. Running a race calculated in hundredths of seconds, a small error of synchronization could lose the race itself. Knowing the theoretical time needed to travel through Modena having added the fixed times of every sector to the starting time, competitors can now try to observe this time using their watches and not chronometers as in the P.A. The time given to drive to the next C.O. must be added to the time of transit at the C.O. in Modena.

To understand this better, see the reproduction of the driving chart showing this sector .

The time of transit calculated by each team is called 'theoretical' because if this time is respected it means that no error has been made.

Any inevitable anticipation or delay, even minimal, must be added to or subtracted from the theoretical time of transit. This mechanism is not difficult to learn and after a few tries it's easy to understand.

On the contrary, learning how to stop chronometers right on the second in order to avoid a penalty demands time and a lot of practice.