I’ll give you the same tip I gave to Jacky Ickx in 1973 when he was driving the Targa for the first time, in the Ferrari 312P,” says the voice on the end of the phone. “I told him ‘This is not a race!’ He crashed on the first lap and had an enormous accident. I saw him afterwards and asked him if he was okay. ‘Yes, I’m okay,’ he replied. ‘But I had a very interesting accident – a very long way down a mountain!’”

The voice is Brian Redman’s. I’ve called him at his Florida home a couple of days before my first visit to the Circuito delle Madonie on the volcanic island of Sicily, the ball at the toe of Italy’s boot. The Targa Florio. An epic race steeped in lore, where men pushed their limits of endurance, bravery… foolhardiness, to the edge and over it. Nazzaro, Nuvolari, Moss… Vaccarella, Elford, Siffert… Ferrari, Porsche, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz – so many names, so many stories, so much history. And so many miles. To grapple with the Targa – nearly 70 years of myth and legend, a race that is hard to relate to from the safety of our homogenised, modern world of infinite run-offs, carbon composite construction and the HANS device – is daunting in the extreme.

Action from the 1907 edition, with Felice Nazzaro in his Fiat