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Otto Wilhelm Rudolf Caracciola〔Bolsinger and Becker (2002), p. 63〕 (30 January 1901 – 28 September 1959), more commonly Rudolf Caracciola (), was a racing driver from Remagen, Germany. He won the European Drivers' Championship, the pre-1950 equivalent of the modern Formula One World Championship, an unsurpassed three times. He also won the European Hillclimbing Championship three times – twice in sports cars, and once in Grand Prix cars. Caracciola raced for Mercedes-Benz during their original dominating Silver Arrows period, named after the silver colour of the cars, and set speed records for the firm. He was affectionately dubbed ''Caratsch'' by the German public,〔Reuss (2006), p. 20〕 and was known by the title of ''Regenmeister'', or "Rainmaster", for his prowess in wet conditions. Caracciola began racing while he was working as apprentice at the Fafnir automobile factory in Aachen during the early 1920s, first on motorcycles and then in cars. Racing for Mercedes-Benz, he won his first two Hillclimbing Championships in 1930 and 1931, and moved to Alfa Romeo for 1932, where he won the Hillclimbing Championship for the third time. In 1933, he established the privateer team Scuderia C.C. with his fellow driver Louis Chiron, but a crash in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix left him with multiple fractures of his right thigh, which ruled him out of racing for more than a year. He returned to the newly reformed Mercedes-Benz racing team in 1934, with whom he won three European Championships, in 1935, 1937 and 1938. Like most German racing drivers in the 1930s, Caracciola was a member of the Nazi paramilitary group National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), but never a member of the Nazi Party. He returned to racing after the Second World War, but crashed in qualifying for the 1946 Indianapolis 500. A second comeback in 1952 was halted by another crash, in a sports car race in Switzerland. After he retired Caracciola worked as a Mercedes-Benz salesman targeting North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops stationed in Europe. He died in the German city of Kassel, after suffering liver failure. He was buried in Switzerland, where he had lived since the early 1930s. He is remembered as one of the greatest pre-1939 Grand Prix drivers, a perfectionist who excelled in all conditions. His record of six German Grand Prix wins remains unbeaten. ==Early life and career== Rudolf Caracciola was born in Remagen, Germany, on 30 January 1901. He was the fourth child of Maximilian and Mathilde, who ran the Hotel Fürstenberg. His ancestors had migrated during the Thirty Years' War from Naples to the German Rhineland, where Prince Bartolomeo Caracciolo had commanded the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress near Koblenz.〔 Caracciola was interested in cars from a young age, and from his fourteenth birthday wanted to become a racing driver.〔Caracciola (1958), p. 1〕 He drove an early Mercedes during the First World War, and gained his driver's license before the legal age of 18. After Caracciola's graduation from school soon after the war, his father wanted him to attend university, but when he died Caracciola instead became an apprentice in the Fafnir automobile factory in Aachen.〔〔Bolsinger and Becker (2002), p. 64〕 Motorsport in Germany at the time, as in the rest of Europe, was an exclusive sport, mainly limited to the upper classes. As the sport became more professional in the early 1920s, specialist drivers, like Caracciola, began to dominate.〔Reuss (2006), pp. 18–19〕 Caracciola enjoyed his first success in motorsport while working for Fafnir, taking his NSU motorcycle to several victories in endurance events.〔 When Fafnir decided to take part in the first race at the Automobil-Verkehrs- und Übungs-Straße (AVUS) track in 1922, Caracciola drove one of the works cars to fourth overall, the first in his class and the quickest Fafnir.〔〔 He followed this with victory in a race at the Opelbahn in Rüsselsheim.〔 He did not stay long in Aachen, however; in 1923, after punching a soldier from the occupying Belgian Army in a nightclub, he fled the city.〔〔Caracciola (1958), p. 2〕 He moved to Dresden, where he continued to work as a Fafnir representative. In April of that year, Caracciola won the 1923 ADAC race at the Berlin Stadium in a borrowed Ego 4 hp.〔〔Caracciola (1958), p. 215〕 In his autobiography, Caracciola said he only ever sold one car for Fafnir, but due to inflation by "the time the car was delivered the money was just enough to pay for the horn and two headlights".〔Caracciola (1958), p. 12〕 Later in 1923, he was hired by the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft as a car salesman at their Dresden outlet. Caracciola continued racing, driving a Mercedes 6/25/40 hp to victory in four of the eight races he entered in 1923.〔〔 His success continued in 1924 with the new supercharged Mercedes 1.5-litre; he won 15 races during the season, including the Klausenpass hillclimb in Switzerland.〔 He attended the Italian Grand Prix at Monza as a reserve driver for Mercedes, but did not take part in the race.〔Cimarosti (1986), pp. 65–66〕 He drove his 1.5-litre to five victories in 1925,〔 and won the hillclimbs at Kniebis and Freiburg in a Mercedes 24/100/140 hp.〔 With his racing career becoming increasingly successful, he abandoned his plans to study mechanical engineering.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rudolf Caracciola」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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