At first, it looks like a routine pit stop and driver change. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan BMW M8GTE stops on its marks. The door opens and the driver promptly sits on the ground. Huh? Then the fresh driver climbs into the cockpit and the guy on the ground pulls himself up, slides his thighs under the roll cage door bar and helps the driver buckle in. Observers are simply slack-jawed by the scene.
What’s going on?
It’s Alex Zanardi doing what he loves — racing cars flat out. A horrific Indy car crash took Zanardi’s legs in 2001, but not one iota of his spirit. He returned to the U.S., driving one of Bobby Rahal’s BMW race cars fitted with hand controls, during January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona.
Zanardi needs no introduction. He was a standout the minute he turned a wheel in anger in one of Chip Ganassi’s Indy cars, winning three races and six poles in his rookie season. He was flamboyant beyond measure.
His legendary pass of Bryan Herta in Laguna Seca’s famed Corkscrew was just one of many examples of brilliant race craft.
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Some people think the victory doughnut is a NASCAR phenomenon, now almost mundane. Nope. Zanardi’s were the first and best, making two concentric circles forming a figure-8.
Zanardi’s CART performance piqued the interest of Formula One team owner Frank Williams. He signed a deal but the CART brilliance didn’t translate to Formula One. Zanardi and Williams called it quits after one season.
Itching to get back to his halcyon days, Zanardi returned to CART but everything cut to black with the crash at Germany’s Lausitzring that would have ended most everyone’s competitive careers.
Not Zanardi; he spit fate in the eye thinking “that’s all you got?” He just changed the game and took to hand cycling, a Paralympic competition that is driven by arm power.
In his indomitable fashion, Zanardi won his first gold medal during the 2012 Summer Paralympics, where he also claimed a silver medal in the individual time trial. He came back in 2016 to win another gold and silver in Rio de Janeiro.
In addition to his Paralympic feats, Zanardi joined BMW Team Italy-Spain in 2003, winning three World Touring Car Championship races in a hand-controlled BMW before retiring in 2009.
Zanardi’s inner fire and resolve is immediately apparent.
“I’m just smart enough and wise enough at my age. I am not in the same place as I was in my mid-20s, maybe I was better from a physical point of view,” he asserts. “I have different instruments these days. I’ve learned a lesson. I’ve gone through many difficult things. There was something I really wanted to do very badly in life and the execution of my project was not that perfect, not that precise. Only (sic) womens are perfect.”
The guy is simply unstoppable.
“So you can do things to best of your ability,” Zanardi explained. “And whenever it’s time to perform you are as good as the work you have done up to that point but you cannot deliver something that magical that day. And whether it is sport or motorsports, hand cycling, rehabilitation getting out of a hospital bed you are able say the most important thing is your life.”
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