I met Lella in November 1987. Months earlier she had sought out my husband Bruno, whom she had met in 1982, when he was working at Elio Imberti’s and she was racing the Alfa Romeo GTV in the European Touring Car Championship. They had shared two successful years, but as she could no longer race ‘full time’ (she had already discovered her illness), she decided to look for a trusted person who could help her stay in racing. Her wish was to open her own team and she asked Bruno for his collaboration.
We then lived in the province of Bergamo and she lived in Crema. Lella had already found a shed with a cottage near her and we decided to move to the area.
I still remember that on the day of our meeting in Crema there was a dense fog, as there is no more now, and coming from Bergamo we got lost…we phoned Lella to fix a meeting point and she immediately came to our rescue.
She had a beautiful smile and the first impact for me was very positive.
Both in life and as a driver, she was very demanding, first and foremost with herself and therefore sought the same attention and precision in the people around her. She was characterized by seriousness, sincerity, dedication, but at the same time collaboration and willingness to listen…She was also a good eater with a lot of joie de vivre to make her dreams come true.
What was the most significant event for me as a driver is difficult to recount, especially since I unfortunately met her at the end of her career and she never boasted about her achievements, despite having achieved so much. Everything she had achieved she had earned with hard work and so it was always important for her to reach the next goal and always do more.
I remember her telling me that in the early years of racing, she would load the car into the van that she drove herself and when she arrived at the racetrack, she would unload the racing car, all by herself. She even used to sleep in the van so that she would have some extra money to spend on the race car.
She also said that she remembered with joy the races she did in America on the oval and city circuits with cars like the Chevrolet Camaro, that she almost needed a ladder to get on it (because of the high wheels) and take the driver’s seat. She remembered how people abroad recognized and appreciated her, but also how she wanted to race and make a name for herself in Italy. With courage she decided to return to racing in Italy, but she remembered with bitterness the difficulty of being accepted in an all-male world…
Sometimes she said that if she had stayed in America she would have become rich and famous, because of all the opportunities she had been offered, but her homesickness for Italy and her desire to be accepted in a purely male sector had prevailed.
Our collaboration began at the end of 1987 when, as I mentioned above, we moved to Capralba (this was the name of the small town where Lella had found a shed with a cottage). I remember that everything had to be set up and we worked a lot side by side to get the structure up and running and prepare the cars for the next races. In March 1988 we took part in the Italian Touring Car Championship (with Ford Sierra Cosworth GRNs), and it was an immediate success for all of us. At the end of the season we won our first Italian title in the category, bringing rookie drivers to success. In the following years we won other titles with drivers brought in by Lella.
She took care of the drivers and sponsors, while Bruno and I and all the guys in the team managed the organizational and technical side until she passed away in March 1992. Lella used her experience to listen to and help the drivers who competed for us, even revealing little secrets that could be decisive in exploiting a slipstream or performing an overtake. I still remember her mimicking the two paired cars with her hands and then describing the overtake with a beautiful smile, with the same joy and enthusiasm as if she had actually been driving.
She was an excellent test driver and even though she could no longer race due to her illness, she loved testing the cars we prepared. She was really sensitive and attentive and could feel the difference in every little change that needed to be made to the car. That’s why many drivers often relied on her to set up their car, only to be faster in the race with the changes she requested.
In addition to working together, we also had nice holidays on Lošinj (an island in the former Yugoslavia), where she had some friends and a small boat from which she loved fishing.
I remember one evening at dinner in an open-air restaurant, a gentleman sitting at a table opposite ours stared at her with some insistence, she turned to me to express her discomfort… Everything was resolved with a good laugh and an autograph from Lella to the stranger, who towards the end of the evening found the courage to declare himself a great admirer of Lella. She, so reserved and shy, was astonished to be recognized.
Lella was a great fighter both in her professional life and in private. When she discovered her illness (a breast cancer), she did not lose heart and, in order not to abandon her greatest passion, founded Lella Lombardi Autosport to continue living her dream as a driver and to continue racing.
I was very close to her during that period; we used to go together for check-ups and with me she was able to talk calmly about her health, even managing to ‘play it down’. For example, I remember the time when, after a round of chemotherapy where she unfortunately lost all her hair, we went together to choose a wig and she had fun trying on every length and colour that day, and we spent a peaceful afternoon together.
A phrase she loved to say was: ‘everything you have must be earned with hard work and sacrifices, because only then will you know how to appreciate every moment of “glory” and, at the same time, you will have the strength to overcome the difficulties that in every field life holds in store for you…’
This is the lesson that probably best sums up Lella’s life.
In a world where everything seems easy and acquired by right without effort, it is good to bear these words in mind.
Sometimes I still wonder what Lella would say about this world of racing, perhaps after so many years not much has changed for women. But let’s look to the future and hope that her story succeeds in rubbing off on today’s young people with her grit and tenacity.
To the present day, Giusy still looks after Lella Lombardi Autosport, managing the accounts.
Her wish is to carry on Lella Lombardi Autosport so as to keep alive the memory of a driver who gave so much to the world of racing, with grit and passion.
