Notes:
The so-called "Anello dei Viali" (Avenues Circuit), 3.186-kilometer street course in Modena downtown, hosted the 8th edition of the Circuito Automobilistico di Modena, on Sunday, 28 September 1947. The track had the same layout used from 1934/1938 and in the first post-war edition of the race, held in 1946. The event was marred by a huge accident that resulted in the deaths of five spectators.

After coming into the pits for control and back on track on the seventeenth lap, Franco Cortese was obliged to abandon the race due to mechanical trouble in his Ferrari 159C, just one lap later. Cortese tried to coast his vehicle on the right side of the Viale delle Rimembranze, but other damaged cars were already parked at that spot and he continued to roll for a while, until he finally found a place to stop the car further down the same street, right in front of the Istituto Salesiano school.

At the same time the Delage 3000 driven by Giovanni Bracco blasted through the Viale delle Rimembranze at an estimate speed of 130 km/h (81 mi/h), coming upon Cortese’s slow machine. To avoid crashing against it, Bracco swerved to the left. According to eyewitnesses reports, the driver appeared to lose control of his vehicle, and the fact that pavement was off-cambered at that point of the track certainly did not help Bracco’s maneuver. The Delage went over a bump on the road and, despite Bracco’s efforts to slow it down, crashed against a large tree on a sidewalk where a crowd was located to watch the race. Different source indicated that Bracco hit Cortese's stationary car, sending the two cars into the crowd, this being the first fatal accident involving a Ferrari car, albeit an immobile one; this has not yet been confirmed.

Five spectators lost their lives in the accident, and nineteen other people were injured, including the driver Bracco, who jumped from the Delage right before the impact against the tree and broke his left leg.

Among the deceased spectators were three youngster that lived in the nearby town of Campogalliano, province of Modena: Cinzio Zanotti, 22-year-old, a worker at the Maserati factory; Augusta Carri, 21, mother of a two-year-old boy; and Carmen Cottafavi, 24; all three had been partigiani during the World War II, when Zanotti adopted the nickname of "Topo". All of them died almost immediately, as well as the eight-year-old Paolo Federici, who was hit by one of the Delage's wheels. The fifth victim was his father, forty-one-year old Dr. Franco Federici of Modena, died two hours later in the Policlinico hospital of head and thorax trauma; he was survived by his wife and a fourteen-year-old daughter Nini, who chose to remain at home in Modena that day.

Aiming to put the awful years of the World War II behind, the Modenesi citizens had prepared a great party to host the second edition of the big car race in town since the end of the conflict but, at 17h07 on Sunday, 28 September 1947, it all came to a sudden and abrupt halt. The race was stopped prematurely on 24th lap and Alberto Ascari in a Maserati A6GCS who was in the lead, was declared the winner, from the sister car of Luigi Villoresi, and Guido Scagliarini third in an Alfa Romeo 2500.

The following days were of general mourning in Modena, and on Tuesday, 30 September the city administration and the local Automobile Club organized a collective service for the five victims. Shops and public offices were closed, and a crowd of thousands people watched the cortege on the streets and squares of Modena. The course of this ceremony avoided the streets used for the race.

After the tragedy, the Modena street course was definitely abandoned and the following editions of the race, then called Gran Premio di Modena, were held at the Aerautodromo of Modena, an airfield circuit which was inaugurated in 1950 and was active until 1979.

• Book "Settant'anni di gare automobilistiche in Italia" by Emanuele Alberto Carli, Automobile Club d'Italia-L'Editrice dell'Automobile, Italy, 1967.
• Book "Benzina e cammina" by Andrea Delli Carri, Fucina Editore, Milano Italy 2004, page 75.
• Book "Piloti Biellesi - Giovanni Bracco, Umberto Maglioli" by Enzo Russo with Massimo Fila, Sidmi, Milano 1997.
• Book "Enzo Ferrari: A Life" by Richard Williams, Yellow Jersey, 2002, ISBN 978-0224059862.
• Magazine Autosprint, issue of 20 January 1998, page 98.
• Newspaper Gazzetta di Modena (Modena, Italy), issue of Monday, 29 September 1947 (special edition) [G1].
• Newspaper La Stampa (Turin, Italy) issue of Monday, 29 September 1947, page 1, article "Tragico circuito a Modena", retrieved by website http://www.archiviolastampa.it/ .
• Website Autodromo di Modena, page http://www.autodromodimodena.it/inside.php?page=7 .
• Website GdeCarli.it by Guido de Carli, chapter "Circuits", page http://gdecarli.it/php/circuit.php?var1=1415&var2=2 .
• Website Racing Circuits, by Daniel King, page http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk/racingcircuits/Italy/ModenaStreet.html .
• Website World Sports Racing Prototypes, by Martin Krejčí, page http://www.wsrp.cz/nonchamp1947.html#49 .
• E-mail by Pier Paolo Garagnani, dated 07 March 2005 (five messages), citing [G1].