ERIK'S EXPOSE'
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Alex Zanardi, the man, the myth, The Bull...Alex Zanardi is one of a kind amongst his CART counterparts. Reckless and wild, willing to push manickly toward the limit and beyond. He's a race car driver.
When I imagine driving the CART series, I see myself flying around and throwing it all about exactly like Zanardi does. Taking risks, that is what auto racing is all about. Caution? Caution is for cowards, real racers run with their passions as fuel; letting their concerns take a backseat to the desire for victory. Sure, sure, he may go too far and endanger himself and those around him on the rare occasion, but more often than not he makes the insanely dangerous move look easy, giving us the thrill CART races so often left us hungry for prior to his soaring onto the scene. Three years of championship auto racing have seen Zanardi set a torrid pace for poles and wins per start. He won last year's driver championship and has now won this year's championship.
The ridiculously stiff fine levied on Zanardi by CART a few weeks ago could be the type of decision making foolery that may ultimately lead to its demise. I agree that Alex was overstepping the acceptable limit of risk, perhaps driving dangerously hard, but hitting him up for fifty thousand big ones is unbelievable. Remember Greg Moore's first corner fiasco last month? Bryan Herta's idiotic charge a few weeks ago? What about Paul Tracy's early season wipeouts? These men were given probation and minor fines, none over ten thousand dollars. Their actions were the product of outright stupidity, fools trying to outbreak the entire field or attempting to pass two wide through a second gear corner. That's foolishness, but Zanardi is something different.
He's raw aggression. He takes that car and does whatever he wants with it, to hell with anyone in the way. When it comes right down to it, he's a throwback to a bygone era in racing when men tested each other's bravery as well as their driving skill. If you're afraid, if you just can't be as fast, get out of the way. That's how Alex Zanardi races, that's how racing was meant to be done.
-Erik
Jan's Rebuttal Yeah, Erik, now we're talkin'! I completely agree. Zanardi is my favorite driver from CART, and I hope he does well next year if/when he goes to Formula 1. Alex is a driver in the classic sense of the work, all balls, no brain! ;] Actually, he has a very good brain, it just doesn't register fear...
He drives much the way I drive in competition...even though I definitely like Mark Martin, I'm more of a cross between Martin and Jimmy Spencer, if anyone can imagine that. Very patient, but give me the opening, and you'll see me pull out-of-the-seat-of-my-pants stunts that leave MY head spinning! (not to mention, sometimes leave ME spinning...)
I can see CART's point, however, with the amazing crash that luckily Michael Andretti survived at Mid-Ohio, they want drivers to "THINK" before they "DO". While I thought that this was a rather strange accident to hammer Alex for (he clipped another car, which lost it's wing, which flew into Michael's car, which jammed his steering, which caused him to crash), I think it's just a culmination of alot of little incidents that were building up to this. Alex is not known to wait very long, and there is a list of drivers who were probably happy to see this kind of action taken against Alex.
However, CART needs to watch themselves. They've penalized alot of drivers this year, and some wrongfully, I think, so pretty soon it could come to where drivers DON'T race, because they're afraid of the ever-mighty hand of CART coming down to turn them into a probationed grease spot.
And I don't like this hypocritcal attitude I see in racing either. Alot of people applauded Jeff Gordon for crunching Jeff Burton to take the win at Darlington, and for his "moving" Rusty out of the way to win at Bristol. The very same people, however, HAMMERED Michael Schumacher for planting a wheel in the side of Villeneuve last year to try to keep his title hopes alive. Ok, stock car racing is not the same as open-wheel, but Michael didn't endanger anyone, he just put his RF wheel squarely in the side of Villeneuve's car. Don't know what he expected to do by that, but it was a last ditch effort to keep his hopes of a championship alive. I'm sorry, but that was the same damn thing Gordon did, so if you can't handle the pressure, get off the pot. While I don't agree with this way of winning races (listen what Mark Martin said last year when he was asked why he didn't 'move' Ricky Rudd out of the way to win at Dover..."That's stealing to win, and *I* don't race like that") but if you fault Michael for doing it, then you need to fault Gordon for doing it. I noticed at Martinsville this year Gordon changed his tune about how to win, he didn't 'move' Burton over, and said he wouldn't feel good about winning that way. Hmmmm...what a difference a year makes, I guess...
- Jan
