Motorized Madness

Brazil, home of Soccer Star Edson Arantes do Nascimento ("Pele") and Champion Race Car Driver Emerson Fittipaldi, has a new game that combines the most violent aspects of both sports. Autobol, as it is called, is played roughly--very roughly--according to soccer rules except that the players drive stripped-down Renault Dauphines and bump the ball instead of kicking it. The result is a kind of motorized madness that seems perfectly in tune with a country that has one of the world's highest auto fatality rates.

Autobol got rolling when a four-team league was organized by Orthopedist Mario Tourinho in Rio de Janeiro eight months ago. Drawing as many as 15,000 fans to their twice-monthly games, the teams square off with up to five drivers on a side (the number varies depending on the size of the field). Once the ball, a hood-high wad of hard rubber and canvas stuffed into a buffalo-hide covering, is put into play, virtually anything goes--up to and including head-on collisions. One of the few prohibitions is cutting directly in front of another driver while he is rolling the ball. That violation results in a free "kick" by an opposing driver.

Tending goal against a shot struck by a car traveling 30 m.p.h. is like trying to intercept a wrecking ball in full flight.

Lost Teeth. The lone referee takes his chances on foot, dodging traffic or retreating to the sidelines to blow a whistle that is almost always ignored.

"He cannot explain it," says one driver, in discussing why Referee Laerte Chaves engages in such a risky avocation. "It's like asking a matador why he likes bulls." Chaves himself could not have phrased it better; he recently lost several teeth when the 26-lb. ball struck him square in the whistle.

The drivers in last week's contest between the Vasco da Gama and America teams were typical of the heterogeneous lot attracted to autobol. One was a cab driver obviously venting pent-up aggressions, while two others were doctors who drove as if they were bent on drumming up some business. Though no one has yet been killed in autobol, bruises and broken ribs are regularly dished out by such cunguceiros (bad guys) as Vasco da Gama's Walter Lacet, a director of TV soap operas.

Scorning the required crash helmet, his black flight suit unzippered to show his chest hair, Lacet gunned around the field with the kind of revved-up machismo that seems a prerequisite for autobol. When the ball got pinned between two cars, he would wheel off to the far end of the field and then come roaring back at full speed until the opposing driver backed off the ball. If he did not retreat, mechanics armed with sledgehammers were called in to disentangle the wreckage and, if necessary, provide substitute cars.

Though the fans loved every side-swiping, hard-fought (final score: America 4, Vasco da Gama 3) minute of it, autobol buffs like Driver-Stockbroker Ivan Silva suggest that the most spectacular crackups are yet to come. Silva foresees the day when huge throngs will watch as many as 22 drivers battling on a 300-yd. field in the latest high-powered machines. "They will be 300 horsepower cars," says Silva. "With big cars and a big field, we could get much higher speeds. It will be dangerous! The public will love it!"

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