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devilmaster
09-26-05, 04:45 PM
http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?slug=racingisinhisblood&prov=tsn&type=lgns


Until September 15, 2001, Italian racecar driver Alex Zanardi was most well-known for spinning doughnuts after victories. All that power behind you, he once explained, and you're so happy, and you do something stupid, crazy. "But, certainly, something that is a lot of fun. You play with your car. You spin doughnuts, do it once, twice. And by then you realize that the fans love it."

On that September day in 2001, Zanardi looked ahead to see what had happened. Here's what he saw. "No front to the car," he says. "And no legs."

Zanardi, the 1997 and 1998 CART champion, led with 13 laps left at the EuroSpeedway in Lausitz, Germany. He came off pit road onto the track. There he lost control, perhaps because someone had spilled fuel. He came sideways as a car driven by Alex Tagliani arrived at 200 mph.

The collision severed Zanardi's legs at the knees. Orthopedic surgeon Terry Trammell told ESPN.com, "It was like a bomb blast because his legs were gone and everything was in small fragments." Though Trammell made a tourniquet from a belt and applied a pressure dressing to the wounds, Zanardi lost 70 percent of his blood.

The bomb-blast amputation, blood loss and trauma were the start of a story about as horrifying as stories get in sports.

Now, four years later, Zanardi's story has become the stuff of celebration......

......All through rehabilitation, Zanardi says, he met ordinary people of extraordinary will. He included himself when he spoke of depression, fear, weakness and the emptiness of loss. "But eventually, we are all stronger than that," he says. "Courage, determination, all of these words that we often use, will come along."

On Aug. 28, at age 38, he won a WTCC event in Germany.

Won on a track 135 miles from where he lost his legs.

Spun doughnuts.

Dave Kindred is a contributing writer for Sporting News. Email him at kindred@sportingnews.com.

:thumbup:

Jervis Tetch 1
09-26-05, 10:17 PM
Damn that's good! :thumbup:

Lizzerd
09-28-05, 01:16 AM
Alex's book is a very inspirational read, too.