Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Alex Zanardi perseveres after losing legs in crash

Wednesday, May 29, 2002 | 9:33 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Eight months after losing both of his legs in a horrific crash during a CART race in Germany, Alex Zanardi has both good days and bad days.

Tuesday was one of the good days.

Shortly before he took part in a teleconference with the North American motor sports media, Zanardi was working on his boat near his Monte Carlo residence. As he was leaving the marina to return home, Zanardi noticed he had a flat tire on the specially equipped BMW he has driven since the accident. With no one to help him, the 35-year-old Italian managed to change the flat tire in about 15 minutes.

"There are days where I'm very miserable and I keep thinking, 'if I had my legs' in doing this and that," said Zanardi, who walks with the aid of two prosthetic legs.

"Even when I have these days, I still do things. There's always a good side and a bad side in everything. Like today, when I had a flat tire when I came out of my boat. At the beginning, I was kind of sweating ... but then I changed that tire and so I was very proud of myself.

"For me, this is sort of a new life and every day that I do something new, it's a little win. I am the only crowd. There is no crowd like when I won Long Beach ... or Cleveland, but still it's an achievement for me. It's a progress, I'm moving forward. My base, my start, went down to a much lower point compared to what it was before, but I'm still climbing. It's a reason for me to smile."

Zanardi, a two-time CART champion who won 15 races in his first stint in the FedEx Championship Series from 1996-98, said he still has the desire to race but doubted he would ever compete again even if it technically were possible.

"Quite frankly, this accident that I had, it changed all my relatives, all my family, a lot," he said. "It didn't change me at all -- not one bit. I have the same attitude toward motor racing, which is a dangerous activity but my accident was just bad luck. I wouldn't be scared to drive again -- I would only be excited to do it again.

"Is it really worth it to jeopardize the quality of my family? I don't know; it's something that I will find out along the way. Whenever I mention (to my family) I could go back to race with any sort of car, they turn white and they don't move a single muscle in their body. I guess it's sort of a very, very natural reaction out of somebody who has lived everything bad of the accident I had and is scared that something like this could happen again."

Zanardi also rejected the idea that he would return to racing as a team owner.

"Owning a team is certainly not my business," he said. "I do not have the determination and the self discipline it takes to do that. I'm only good for a big effort that doesn't last very long.

"As a driver, I think I was sometimes good enough to do some good results and I was very passionate for what I was doing, developing the car and everything. Owning a team, I wouldn't be successful -- if I would, it would only be luck and I don't count on luck to try to succeed."

Zanardi said he doesn't have any memory of the accident or the race. He said his last recollection of Sept. 15 was the driver introductions and joking around with fellow driver Tony Kanaan shortly before he got in the car. He has, however, reviewed tapes of the accident in which he was hit broadside by Las Vegas' Alex Tagliani after Zanardi spun onto the track upon leaving the pits.

"I did watch many times the replay of the accident," Zanardi said. "I actually got a tape ... from the closed-circuit video -- the one that the circuit has -- which stays on me even after the accident. It's pretty straightforward.

"At the beginning, I can see that I was opening the shield on my helmet and then trying to undo my belts ... so there was a time in which I must have been awake and I must have realized what had happened. I must have said, 'Man, it's going to be tough to fix this (car),' but I don't remember anything of that. I don't know if it was because of all the blood I lost or if it's just human nature that when it's too bad, it tells you that we're going to erase that information."

While Zanardi said the support he received from his family and friends was crucial to his recovery, he said his outlook on life in general was what helped him battle back from his near-fatal injuries.

"(My wife and son) are very, very important but they're not important for my motivation," Zanardi said. "My motivation is to be alive -- that is more than sufficient to fight and try to get better again. The fact that I have a son and a great family is a huge plus. It's not that if I wouldn't had that great son or that great family I would now kill myself because I wouldn't see any reason to live.

"I just have a very good relationship with life in general and therefore I can still see a lot of positives in my life."