Editor’s Note: USTA Chairman of the Board and veteran amateur driver Joe Faraldo is in Italy for an amateur driving competition. Here are his insights from the trip and the competition.

The trip started peacefully enough with trips in the Veneto Region with landscapes dotted with vast fields of waving sunflowers and hectares of vineyards all subject to the most extreme heat conditions.

Joe Faraldo is in Italy for an amateur driving competition. USTA photo.

Our gracious hosts guided us to a plant making over 100,000 wheels of parmesan reggiano per year. Interestingly, this cheese can only be so labeled if it comes from the defined region and from black and white cows that are only fed with grass grown in the region. We saw the “wow room factor” which had thousands upon thousands, of year and month dated, 40 kilo wheels of cheese waiting to be officially inspected and stamped as meeting industry standards. Those not making the grade may have met some defect in the long process to perfection and are marked in a way to signify their lack of perfection and sold cheaply as a consequence. The cheese meeting the standards bear a month and year stamp.

Then we were swept off to a fantastic lunch at a historic race track that only operates four days per year and only allows for drivers with no license whatsoever; that is no mistake, no license whatsoever, that was followed by a visit to a castle built in the 13th century.

Enough about this, we were here to race in events organized with the best of intentions by our Italian hosts led by Stefan De Lena and our first stop was Ippodromo Padovanella. The 98 degree heat we had been enduring seemed to be about to end with some serious weather forecast for the end of our two races, the fourth and sixth. The weather looked threatening but the sandy track was still being watered right up to the beginning of a lightning storm that started around race three.

At home that would have caused a pause at the very least but out we went seven minutes to post. The automatic timer on the starting car flashed less than a minute to post when the strongest of winds blew from left to right, blowing sand like one would see in the Sahara desert accompanied by rain that had us all thinking of the reasons why Noah decided to work so swiftly on his craft.

The lights went out on the starting car and off the track we expected to go. Instead, as the lights went back on, the car proceeded to move and though it was hard to figure what was going on as the race was started amidst the storm.

Tony Beltrami was a winner in Italy. James Lisa file photo.

A storm which produced the likes of orange to baseball sized hail and that is without one iota of exaggeration. The hail broke car windshields and dented car bodies and that is again, truly without exaggeration. The hail hit Alan Schwartz so hard his left arm was dripping with blood and the rest of us were pelted, including the race winner Tony Beltrami.

Tony left, as did I, hoping to swoop Scott Keppler who had the lead, Tony cleared, but I couldn’t say I was hung out to dry because the rain was so intense we all were soaked to the bone before turn two. The pelting with hail continued until Beltrami emerged from the hail storm victorious over Scott Keppler who got the place dough followed by two homebred Italians. For Beltrami, who was odds on, it was his first win in his very first attempt on foreign soil.

There was no winner’s circle photos because we all escaped to the barns to avoid further injury and damage to both horse and man. No one except Scott Keppler’s boy Liam; hoping desperately that his dad would catch the elusive Beltrami, saw Liam pelted and soaked waiting for a chance at a win photo with his dad.

Race six never came about as we learned the meaning of Corsa Canncellato. The track was completely rendered unsafe. Disappointing as it was for us who ventured so far it did not ruin our post race festivities with these wonderful hosts, who were devastated by it all.

Tonight saw some of our team take a day trip to Venice while others went to an open air opera in Verona at a Coliseum type venue to see Rigolletto.

Friday, the races continue at Cesena with the Americans leading in accumulated points but as Yogi Berra used to say it is not over until the fat lady sings.