Two years after Alex Zanardi’s accident there, the ChampCar World Series made an emotional return to Eurospeedway Lausitz, where he was able to complete the “missing” 13 laps from the race that nearly cost him his life. He drove a modified ChampCar with hand controls and ran competitive speeds.
Photo: Mike Weston / LAT Photographic
Dr. Stephen E. Olvey Photo: Dan R. Boyd USA LAT Photographic
I met Alex Zanardi back in the late ’90s when he first came into Indycar racing. My impression at the time was: what a happy, friendly guy. Alex is the type of person who shortly after you first meet him you feel like you’d known him for a long time, and that he was going to be a good friend.
One of the most important parts of my job as Director of Medical Affairs for CART was to make sure that the medical facilities we might have to use at a particular event were in place, that we went to the right hospital, used the right ambulance service, had the right helicopter, had the right doctors on call, knew who the best surgeons were and so on. This task was much more difficult to do when you went overseas, because of unfamiliarity and language issues.
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