Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 10:17pm
I wouldn't be brave enough to declare myself as one who really followed this man's career in detail but I admittedly became somewhat of a fan of a particular Italian race car driver by the name of Alex Zanardi.
An admiration developed not just due to the results he had achieved out on track, or that he had defied the plethora of conceivable odds post one of the most horrific accidents I've seen since Imola 1994. I became an admirer rather because of his grounded sense of resolve and determination.
When I was presented the chance to meet Mr Zanardi, I was awed at the prospect of just being in the same room as this man. And whatever those journalists tell you about him as a person is absolutely spot on. Mr. Zanardi doesn't just have a sense of humour but super human resolve. He was and is never seemingly deterred by adversity be it by design or by default -even in spite of his near-fatal crash at Lausitzring in 2001 that saw him lose both legs.
Effectively, sympathy and well-wishes flowed in from all corners of the earth, particularly when headlines declared his single seater racing career was over. Those in the media who even dared predict his recovery would never have imagined that Alex would indeed ever set foot (forgive the pun) into a race car let alone race again!
Barely three years on from that Lausitzring horror, Mr. Zanardi returned to his first love, racing, at the wheels of a BMW touring car to race at Monza in 2004. A year later, Alex won his first race since the accident, ironically at Oschersleben, a circuit near Lausitzring! In November 2006, he defied even more odds returning to F1, driving a specially modified BMW Sauber F1.06!
He said, "I know that I won't get a contract with the F1 team, but having the chance to drive an F1 racer again is just incredible!" When I met him in Munich late last year, Alex was talking about his participation in a world-famous marathon declaring, "I finished 4th at the New York Marathon with the handcycle & you know the Italian Olympic committee asked me to represent Italy at the next Olympics!
I would have to train between the races, but that would definitely be a challenge!" He claims that he jests but I bet he would actually give it a shot! Perhaps we may see his name in bold on the entrants list at Beijing or at the next one.. who knows. Being Italian he is full of expressions and I especially enjoyed his joyful persona and grounded sense of humour, mostly about himself.
Unassuming and humble, his is a rare quality. There wasn't that feeling of everything being for show, staged or put on for the cameras. His sense of humility could certainly give a few folks in the motorsports industry a run for their money!As we walked towards the arena for an event, I realised that the organisers (who shall remain nameless) had built a pedestrian ramp with an almost 90degree incline that us able-bodied found difficult to climb.
Some of us grumbled to get across and when we finally got across to the arena, there was Mr. Zanardi, all smiles and trading jokes with the younger drivers who did complain about that blasted ramp..
hat's off Mr. Zanardi!
