Q&A: Alex Zanardi - Pt.2.

The CART series lost one of its crowd favourites when Alex Zanardi was involved in an horrific accident at last year's race in Germany. Although the Italian survived the impact with both Alex Tagliani's car and the wall, he was severely injured, and would never race again.

One of life's eternal optimists, however, Zanardi refused to quit and, today, is back with his family and planning how to make the most of life with artificial legs.

Q:
Has there been anyone who has been especially important to you during this whole recovery period, any of the drivers, or anything like that that you have drawn strength from that have been especially encouraging?

AZ:
Well, everyone had a smile for me that was in Berlin. Obviously, it was great for me to feel so many people so close to me. I know, for instance, Jimmy Vasser was there really long and I could read his eyes, I could read in his eyes terrible pain in terms of he was hurt. He didn't want, you know, his good friend Alex to be in that situation. And Tony [Kanaan] as well and many other drivers who were there, I mean, I told to PT - Paul Tracy - on the phone, and his voice was like, you know, he was going to cry. Alex Tagliani was actually very hard for me to try to pick up because, you know, I wanted him to feel totally free from any responsibility. I mean, he doesn't have any responsibility in the accident.

I just came to realise that I had a lot of friends, I have a lot of people that love me. Obviously, my wife is very important, very important because in all this time she never watched me with that look that means 'I am sorry', or that means 'poor you'. She always looked me in the eyes straight and said 'I know you are going to do it, and, as proof of that, while everybody was telling her to pray and doubting that I would survive and, even if I had survived, I would have been probably hurt in my brain, or not able to move my limbs at all, or that maybe my kidneys wouldn't have worked - all the sort of troubles that, 99 times out of 100, somebody that has gone through what I have has - she called BMW and ordered me the car with manual controls because she knew I was going to want to drive the car the very next day I would get out of the hospital.

And so, when I got out of the hospital, my car was there sitting for me. And that tells you which kind of reaction my wife had, what was going through her brain while she had her husband lying in a hospital bed in a coma. That's her, and I am very, very great to have such a woman on my side.

Q:
The Sports Illustrated article made quite a reference to Ashley Judd being there with your wife at the time, and I am wondering, you said that everybody around you - the attitude of everybody else around you changed. Who was important to your wife during this entire period?

AZ:
Well, my wife and I am not going to make her very popular because she always said that the Americans, they smile a lot but they don't really mean it, and she actually came to understand that the Americans they smile a lot and they really mean it. And the heart that everybody showed you in the circumstances, which is just unbelievable.

Ashley, you are right, she was very, very close to Daniella and she was basically next to her every minute, and every minute that Daniella wanted her to be there and so she was very, very helpful. But many other people, you know, many other people, and that's why I want to come to the States and see all these friends that I have.

Q:
The one thing I want to ask you, you said your relatives have changed more than you. In what way do you notice that?

AZ:
Well, you know, they probably whenever I mention, you know, could I go back to race with any sort of car, they turn white and they don't move a single muscle in their body anymore. I just guess it's sort of a very, very natural reaction out of somebody that has lived everything bad of the accident I had and that's very, very scared that something like this could happen again. So I would just assume that, if I would ever go back and race on an oval again, they would be terrified for me to do that.

Q:
There were times when you said you get depressed. Obviously, that's definitely understandable. During those times do you ever think back, God, I am just lucky to be in the situation that I am right now, it could be a helluva lot worse?

AZ:
Yeah, obviously that helps, but you can't just simply say 'I am lucky, I am lucky to be here'. I mean, this is what everybody keeps telling you, but you know it could always be worse. I guess, when I go there in the centre, when I do my rehabilitation, I look at the people with only one leg and I actually envy them because I'd love to have one leg. I guess the ones that only have one leg, they envy the ones that they are only missing one leg below the knee, and on and on.

And so, I guess you have to look at your own problems. You have to try to improve your own situation and sometime along the way there's times where you cannot do what you would want and so you get a little disappointed. Not really depressed, kind of disappointed. And I guess it's normal.

At the beginning, you can help that by saying I could have lost my life. I could have lost more than two legs, I could have had some sort of consequence, but, after some time, you start to say, man, I wish I had my legs back, it would be much easier. But most of the time I say that smiling. I know that I am a lucky guy. I know that that after an accident like the one I had, you know, only one guy out of a thousand can really go back home and still live. And I am that one. So I am totally aware of that.

But, on the other end, sometimes I tend to sweat. Having said that, for instance, I haven't had to drop one single tear after my accident. Maybe, if I could cry sometimes, it would help. But I am not - I don't think I am a tough guy - I just have a very good relationship with life in general, and therefore, I can still see a lot of positives in my life.

I often get asked the question, oh, your son must have been very, very important for your motivation to keep going or your wife or the people that love you. Yeah, they are very, very important, but they are not important for my motivation. My motivation for the man I am, my motivation is to be alive. That's more than sufficient to fight and try to get better again than the fact that I have a son and a great family, although that is a huge plus. But it's not as though, if I didn't have a great son or that great family, I would now kill myself, because I wouldn't see any reason to live, you know? It's truly the opposite.

Q:
Has your relationship with your son changed at all, because I notice that you said kids sometimes have a hard time reacting to certain things like this. Have you noticed has he changed at all?

AZ:
No.
Q:
Have you had time to watch what is going on in open-wheel racing in the States? I wanted to know what your take on the future of open-wheel racing is in the US form of open-wheel racing?

AZ:
Yeah, I mean, obviously I am always tuned to any form of racing, and especially with what happens in America, either Champcars or IRL or NASCAR, you know. I have the possibility to watch that through the satellite and I actually watched the Indy 500 the other day and it's good.

It looks like IRL is certainly gaining power, but unfortunately Champcars is actually losing a little bit. And I really hope that Mr Pook can turn it around and I wish him the best because CART, it's a great series, and this war, it's just sad.

I mean, I am not the first one to say what I am saying, but the cars that I drove in all my years in America is by far the best car I have ever driven. I am not saying the one I drove for Chip or the one I drove for Mo, that kind of car, that kind of chassis with that kind of turbocharged engine, with that kind of chemistry between power and control, that kind was just fantastic. And, you know, if you would have to have Olympic Games for motor racing, that's the kind of car that would have to be picked, because that's the kind of car that would allow everybody to be, more or less, in the same situation and so that's what's out of motor racing you could really call the closest thing to sport, pure sport.

Formula One is not sport. Formula One is only intense competition between teams where the competition is really the research, the technology. Because nobody could win if they wouldn't have a Ferrari or a McLaren or a Williams, you know, but, in Champcars, everybody could win a race and still at an amazingly high level with cars that are competing and making - producing a super exciting show.

Unfortunately, this is not sufficient because this message has to be sent out to the fans in a way that the fans can really understand that and I think, in the past few years, the message was sent out in the wrong way. The series was not advertised in the best possible way, and so that's why you know, the interest has gone down because quite frankly, I think CART could have survived the loss of the Indy 500. When I came in 1996, the interest - especially over here in Europe - was incredibly high and again, you know, technically speaking, there's nothing wrong and there's no reason why this series could be well known around the world, not only in the United States.

So, to answer your question, I watch everything, and I hope there's a lot of fans will watch and still watch IRL, CART, NASCAR, everything, because it only takes a remote control and you can watch everything. Not only one series.

Q:
You talked about the inspiration and the friendship that you had. We had Jimmy Vasser on Race Line Radio not long ago and he talked about what a tremendous inspiration you had been to him and to all of your friends. And the fans as well. Just talk a little bit about some of the support that you have had from the fans, because I know the mail you have been getting and the e-mails have probably just been overwhelming. Talk about some of the support you have had and the good wishes from the fans you have had from up there?

AZ:
Actually, there's a story on the CART web site that David Phillips wrote when he came here last week just before the Monaco Grand Prix. On the morning when I turned the first cheque, the first amount of money, that the Alex Zanardi Foundation has been able to raise, thanks to the support of the fans, mainly, and thanks to the support of a lot of people, especially in the CART community.

While I was able to raise quite a lot of money for the first six months of existence of this foundation - $85,000 - I donated it to another foundation because, obviously, my foundation was at the beginning. This is only the very beginning. I still have not precise objective. Instead, the [other] foundation - called the World Association to Aid Children, which Prince Albert is running and which was founded by his mother, Princess Grace - they have precise objectives.

One of their objectives was to complete a school and the first assistive paediatric centre that they are building for kids in Madagascar and with the money that I donate them they are going to be able to finish all that. So this is a very exciting thing I have been involved with and this was only thanks to the support of all the people that were in touch with what happened to me and they love me. So now that I can see - now that I see I can do something like this, I am actually going to get even more involved.

I have been on television a lot in the recent months - more than the prime minister really - in Italy. What I have started to do, because I was feeling so busy that at one point I said I can't carry on like this, I said I am going to try to sell myself. At least, if it's got to be a job at least I want to be paid. And all the money that I made I just turned it into the foundation. And I have been able to raise some good money myself. So this is actually an exciting thing which is not really costing me much, and I have been able to help somebody.

People, I guess, the fact that I was a little popular before my accident, you know, and draw a lot of attention from the media, the fact that I kept smiling had increased this attention because people couldn't believe that a guy that lost both his legs had some reasons to smile. And so that interest continued. That's why I have been on television and in the papers very, very often. That gives me also the chance to relate with people in a better way because now, when I see somebody, you know, they know which kind of reaction I had already, even if they hadn't seen me after the accident, because they have read the magazines and they have seen me on television.

And, when I bump into them, they always pat my back and they you know, they kind of cheer me and they say, man, you know, you are really something else, you are doing really well, and whatever. In any case, they welcome me with a smile, if you understand what I am saying, which helps me much, much more than, you know, than somebody that comes there and says 'oh, I am sorry, Alex, sorry what happened to you'. And then it's me I have to cheer this guy up because I say, no, it's not that bad, come on, look, I can also dance, I do this and I do that. Because I don't want to waste any time, you know, with the sad face or whatever. I like to smile and I like people to smile back to me. So this whole deal of this popularity at least it helped me a lot in that respect.

Q:
A lot of people sure do miss your smile, Alex. Any way that you can get up to Canada, where you have scores and scores of fans? If you are ever in Vancouver or the new race in Montreal, you better stop and talk to us because you have a lot of people who love you on this side of the border.

AZ:
Thank you.
MC:
We did have a couple of e-mail questions from people who couldn't join us on the teleconference today. Do you have a website that deals with the charitable effort, a way for people to donate money?

AZ:
Well, this is a good opportunity. I was going to call CART and try to get all the information sort of connection, a link with our website, and counting on the fact that my friends of CART are going to be probably excited with that idea. I can just welcome everybody to stay tuned and wait for that link which will take you into the website and probably tell you the full story. Because I actually want to have, you know, pictures on the website with what has been done with - where the money has gone and I want all the people that have been able to help me a little bit, to know exactly where the money went.

MC:
We'll look forward to seeing if we can get a link hooked up with cart.com. We'll go from there.

Q:
When you pulled that drive that made you a champion in racing, is it that same inner drive and competitive nature that you had that's allowed you to overcome what has happened to you?

AZ:
Well, I don't think so. I actually think it's true the other way around. I guess - I don't think - I think being a man of sport for a very long time certainly tuned my temper, it tuned my character a little bit, has trained me to hold my emotions and act in a very rational way, and take decision very, very rapidly as you would have to do when you would drive a race car at a really high speed.

But, I guess, if you get good, good results, it's because somehow you have the ability to do a better job than other people sometimes, people that have a particular ability to compete in that event. So, I think that you are correct that it's strong enough to succeed in doing a better job than a very selected opposition. I think it's not that I am reacting this way that I am trying to overcome my misfortune, and what I have done in sports helps me. I think that's my character, and if it's somehow quality what you are trying to describe, it's the same quality that's helping me today that has helped me in the past win some races.

But I can assure you that I have a lot of weak points and a lot of bad habits too [laughs]. I am not a perfect man. I only try to do my best.

Q:
There are things within myself that limit my ability to do things and sometimes I get discouraged and I look to other people or to other things in my life to maybe say okay that I am better here. Do you feel that sometimes do you go through that?

AZ:
Absolutely. Yeah, many, many times I look at other people and I say, you know, not necessarily in the sense that if he's done it I can do it too, but even in the sense that you know, if somebody, if he acts in a certain way when everybody seems to go wrong, then you can take that as an example, it gives me strength, it gives me, you know, inspiration, and yeah, I do look at other people a lot, and I get a lot of help.

Q:
Finally, some believe that the good Lord put certain people in certain positions because he wants that person to be an example or that person to have a special place in life. Do you believe that?

AZ:
I don't know. Not really. I think the good Lord is really busy doing other things, and in this life, in this world, on this little planet we have to find our own way sometimes. Just bad luck, so some obstacles along the way, and it's not necessarily - it's not always by ability that we surpass these obstacles. Sometimes we surpass these obstacles just because we're lucky enough to turn the wheel before the obstacle comes on our way, and sometimes we actually are steering onto it, you know, you can't predict life.

And yes, I do believe in God. I do believe there has got to be something that ultimately will be there to judge what we have done in this life. But I don't think, you know, I don't think that's what happened to me was so to make people think about it. It was just bad luck, and you know, that's my conclusion.

MC:
That will just about wrap it up for our teleconference today. Alex, we can't thank you enough for joining us on today's call.

AZ:
Can I say a final thing?

MC:
You sure can.

AZ:
I just want to congratulate Paul Tracy on winning the Indy 500 because, in my heart, he's the one that won the race. This is another example to testify how, you know, you got to be lucky sometimes to win. He did not have the best car, but he was just carrying his car around at every corner and driving the hell out of it, and you know, as much as I like Helio, I wanted to see Paul win the race - unfortunately, it didn't happen, but it was not certainly not his fault and in my heart, I think he's the winner.

MC:
I am sure a lot of people share your opinions on that, Alex. We appreciate you sharing them with us.

We all are looking forward to seeing you at a CART event this season. We hope we do get the chance to see you out there. We wish you the best of luck. We really enjoyed spending time with you this afternoon.

AZ:
It was my pleasure.