Columnist Ron Kantowski: Brazilian driving stars face real perils off track

Friday, Sept. 24, 2004 | 10:05 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

As the latest in a long line of auto racing stalwarts from Brazil, Bruno Junqueira knows what it is to risk life and limb every time he leaves the house.

Then, if he's lucky, he drives to the racetrack.

In Brazil's unbalanced economy, the disparity between rich and poor is wider than the Amazon River and has spawned a frightening new industry.

Kidnapping for profit.

If you're rich and/or famous -- and if you hail from South American and play soccer or drive fast cars for a living you most certainly are -- consider yourself a target. You might as well have car owner Chip Ganassi's sponsor logo painted on your forehead.

Junqueira put the Target car on the pole at Indianapolis a couple of years ago when he finished second in the Champ Car championship to another Brazilian, Cristiano da Matta. Junqueira, Indy Racing League points leader Tony Kanaan and two-time Indy 500 champ Helio Castroneves competed against each other in the Champ Car World Series before going their separate ways, so at one time or another they've all had aggressive Paul Tracy in their rearview mirrors.

But as disconcerting as that can be, it's nothing compared to sitting at a traffic light in Sao Paulo and seeing a couple of masked men, the barrels of their guns reflecting the bright Brazilian sun, in your rearview mirror.

Junqueira, second in Champ Car points and one of the prerace favorites in Saturday night's Bridgestone 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, hails from Belo Horizonte, a planned city patterned after Washington, D.C., which is scary in its own right. But in that it's not one of the country's population centers, such as Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, he has managed to keep his credit cards in his wallet.

Kanaan wasn't so fortunate. In 1997, he was kidnapped at gunpoint in Sao Paulo and taken for a two-hour ride during which his abductors took his cash and maxed out his credit cards at an ATM for about $1,000.

Gunmen kidnapped Castroneves' sister in 1996, holding her captive for four hours. They stole her car and an undisclosed amount of cash before releasing her.

Felipe Giaffone, another Brazilian now driving in the IRL, has two harrowing tales to tell. In 2000, he was taken hostage for five hours in Sao Paulo before kidnappers maxed out his credit cards and demanded another $2,000 from his father. Then six months later, his father was adducted and held hostage for 23 days before being released upon payment of an undisclosed ransom.

Giaffone was so worried about repercussions that he did not tell anybody about his ordeal for more than two years.

On Thursday, when approached at the Champ Car news conference at Mandalay Bay, Junqueira asked to change the subject.

"That happened like in the '90s. It's much less now," said Junqueira, 27, who drives the No. 6 PacifiCare Ford/Cosworth-Lola-Bridgestone for longtime Champ car supporters Carl Haas and actor Paul Newman. "It's not something I like to talk about. We are here to talk about racing.

"The problem when you talk about something like that is that it gives bad people the idea to do that. Unfortunately, that's something the press in Brazil (doesn't realize). If they didn't put that somebody was kidnapped ... the bandits would not learn to do that (very) thing. This is why I don't like to talk about it."

That's certainly understandable, although his countrymen have been a little more forthcoming about the dangers of navigating Brazil in a nice car.

"When I go there, I turn my ring around and take off my watch," Castroneves told the Indianapolis Star. "I try to avoid (drawing attention), although crime is impossible to predict."

The American-style rolling race start is a new concept for many drivers who come from overseas but not the boys from Brazil, who do a variation of it every time they approach a red light. They slow down, hoping to time the light, so when they arrive in the intersection it turns green and the car never stops.

Most of the Brazilians who drive in Champ Car and the IRL reside in the Miami area, probably because to them, South Beach seems safer than a gated community watched by pit bulls. Yet, they still talk about retiring to Brazil when their driving days are done.

Based on their descriptions, Sao Paulo doesn't seem like the ideal place to raise your kids. But, I suppose, at least they don't have airplanes dropping out of the sky and landing in the middle of huge office buildings.

"We go back there now with bulletproof cars and bodyguards," Kanaan said recently. "So it's not a problem."

Sometimes, safety is in the eye of the beholder.