CIV as it was: fifty years ago, the last time at the Modena Aerautodromo; the "Little Indianapolis" in a documentary film

Fifty years have passed since the Italian Speed Championship kicked off at the Modena Aerautodrome. Today, as the CIV restarts from Misano on April 25 and 26, that story comes back to life in a docufilm that tells the tale of the Emilian “little Indianapolis.”

For over a quarter of a century, between 1950 and 1976, in alternating seasons, the opening round of the tricolor championship was held right here: a small circuit laid out around a runway, now absorbed into the city and transformed into Enzo Ferrari Park. A symbolic place, capable of spanning different eras, all the way to hosting in 2017 Vasco Rossi’s “Modena Park,” the record-breaking concert in Italian music.

The last CIV opener in Modena took place on March 21, 1976. In the premier class, Giacomo Agostini won, back with MV Agusta after Yamaha shut down its team, ahead of Marco Lucchinelli on Suzuki and a very young Nico Cereghini, also riding an RG 500 prepared by the Sacchi dealership.

All displacement classes and the best riders of the era were on track. The sun was pale, and the crisp air coming down from the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines helped keep the engines perfectly cool. All around, an astounding crowd: forty, maybe fifty thousand people packed in everywhere—on the Innocenti tube grandstands, on the wall of the nearby barracks, even on the skeletons of apartment buildings under construction in a city riding an economic boom and hungry for speed.

That atmosphere lives again in the docufilm “The Little Indianapolis – Stories of Men and Motorbikes”, directed by Fabio Fasulo and Francesca Mignardi and produced by Frame at Work.

"The idea was born in 2021,” says Fasulo, “when Francesca realized that many Modenese who now go to Enzo Ferrari Park to run or train don’t know that there once stood a circuit where the greatest protagonists of postwar car and motorcycle racing competed."

"The bond between Modena and the automobile has already been widely explored. Modenese motorcycling, on the other hand, despite producing multiple World Champions like Luca Cadalora and Walter Villa, has always eluded an organic narrative."

"They are the witnesses of that era: from Giacomo Agostini to Luca Cadalora, to Claudio Lusuardi, along with tuners like Gianfranco Bursi and technicians like Francesco Villa. And then the enthusiasts of the time—children clinging to the aerautodrome fences who became successful adults, like Massimo Bottura and Matteo Panini."

From this experience, the Cinematic Motor Fest was also born, the first Italian festival dedicated to motorsport told through cinema.

"Yes, we’ve reached the third edition,” Fasulo explains, “and last year we premiered the Hollywood production ‘Ferrari: Fury & the Monsters,’ dedicated to the relationship between Enzo Ferrari and Mauro Forghieri. The 2026 edition will be held during the Motor Valley Fest, from May 28, with works like ‘Natural Born Driver,’ dedicated to Ivan Capelli, and ‘Ulysse,’ a French production about a differently-abled driver competing in Euro Nascar.”

"After the official screenings, it’s now available on DVD, but we plan to show it again out of competition at the festival. Because fifty years on, the Little Indianapolis isn’t just a memory: it’s a piece of history that Modena still has yet to finish telling.”