The Milan-Sanremo was his first race of the year 1950, his second as a professional. He was riding for Bartali, on a Bartali bike, and for Gino Bartali. Profession: domestique. He was 23 years old. Before Ovada, at the junction to Strada della Caraffa, he went on a break: he left the group, pedaled towards Lerma, entered a house and hung up his bike.

Mario Benso was not called Benso but Benzo, and for the sake of the registry, his name was not Mario but Mario Luigi. A typo in the newspapers changed his sporting identity. He was born on August 21, 1926, there, in Lerma, via Calderoni 21. An Alessandrian, therefore a Coppi man by land, he would become a Bartali man by jersey. But first an amateur in Siof, the university of cycling, with Ettore Milano and Sandrino Carrea as genuine teammates, and Biagio Cavanna as a far-sighted blind coach, in 1948 at the Lancia Sports Group in Turin and third in the Italian amateur championship in Rome. And so he turned professional. It seems that Coppi, and then Carrea and Milano, asked him to join Bianchi, and it seems that Benzo replied that he preferred to go with Bartali, because Bartali was his idol. He would come to regret it. Because Benzo was sunny, creative, cheerful, while Bartali was serious, rigorous, pious. That time in the Montecatini-Genoa stage of the 1949 Giro d'Italia, when Benzo sensed home air and broke away at the start, Bartali, who expected his domestiques to always be by his side, scolded him and asked for explanations. Benzo responded that he had a "hunger for glory". That time in the Cuneo-Pinerolo stage of the 1949 Giro d'Italia, the one with 254 km up and down Maddalena, Vars, Izoard, Monginevro, and Sestriere, between asphalt and dirt, between dawn and sunset, between rain and cold, between Italy and France, between sacrifices and glory - the stage where Coppi was first, capable of 192 km in a solo breakaway, Bartali second at 11'52", Alfredo Martini third at 19'46", and also 65th and last, Mario Benso at 1.34'05".

Those times in the 1949 Giro d'Italia when Benzo battled with Carollo and Malabrocca to win the black jersey, "not so much for the jersey, but for the money", without succeeding ("Imagine - he loved to repeat - I didn't even manage to come last"), and anyway finished the Giro Rosa 63rd and third from last - thus: podium - at 7.41'58" from Coppi, ahead of Malabrocca by a mere 5'28", and Carollo by a chasm of 2.15'09". And that time at the end of the 1949 Giro d'Italia, when dividing the prizes, Bartali credited Benzo for all the bananas - Gino claimed it was an impressive amount - eaten along the way (and from that day, euphemistically, Benzo would describe Bartali as "tight"). That time when Benzo didn't show up for a race appointment, his friend and colleague Giovanni Meazzo went looking for him and found him engaged with a young lady. Because, life as a rider, was short. And all those times when, as "Pinella" De Grandi remembered, at the 1949 Giro d'Italia, at the table, Bartali and his domestiques were silent, almost gloomy, and the only one laughing and joking, even alone, was him, Benzo.

According to the registry archives of Lerma, Benzo moved to Ovada on July 11, 1950, married in 1952 in Tagliolo Monferrato to Miss Anna Alpa and divorced from her with an act of the Sanremo Court in 1974, from their marriage a daughter, Graziella, was born, who lives in Sanremo. After stopping racing, Benzo bought a truck and specialized in livestock transport, going into business for himself. Suffering from a leg pain, hospitalized in Novi Ligure Hospital for phlebitis, he died a couple of weeks later, on October 15, 1994, from an embolism. At the funeral, he was accompanied by Carrea, Milano, and Meazzo. That was his final breakaway.