Things Just Won’t Be the Same Without Zanardi

FONTANA —  Alex Zanardi pulled the chair out for his teammate, Jimmy Vasser, who an hour earlier had won the Marlboro 500. Then, with a flourish worthy of a waiter opening a bottle of the finest champagne, he twisted the cap off the bottle of water at Vasser’s place at the interview table.

Then, poker-faced, he sat down.

Charlie Chaplin might have played it a little better. But the little tramp couldn’t race a lick.

So if anybody is asking whether CART will miss Zanardi next year when he’s off racing in Formula One, the answer can only be a resounding yes.

In his three seasons, Zanardi brought to American racing a fiery determination unseen since the days of A.J. Foyt in his prime. But he brought it wrapped in a sense of humor, sometimes whimsical, sometimes overwhelmingly joyous.

Who, before Zanardi did it first at Long Beach, punctuated his victories by doing doughnuts, like a teenager in his first car? Who turned interview sessions into comedy routines, yet always made his point? Who raced with more passion, more panache, more elan? Who won with more style?

And who, in his last race on our shores--unless F1 comes back our way--went out in the style befitting a two-time champion, finishing third when he had no business finishing in the top 10?

And who would have won if he could have, even if that would have meant depriving Vasser, his friend and teammate, of second place in the season standings? It didn’t work out that way but. . . .

“It’s a race,” he said. “You don’t compete to finish second.”

No one understood that better than Vasser, who observed, “Alex doesn’t have too many friends out there when it’s time to win the race. He wants to win the race.”

So when it came down to crunch time Sunday, Zanardi wasn’t thinking how fortunate he was to be in position to win the race, even after two Keystone Kops pit stops and a stop-and-go penalty for pulling away from one of them with the fuel hose still attached. He wasn’t thinking about how nice it would be for the team if Vasser won. He was thinking how spectacular it would be if he won--and Vasser finished second.

To do that, both he and Vasser needed to pass Greg Moore on a restart after a caution period with a lap left.

“Before the restart, Alex pulled up next to me and--I could tell from his gestures and his expressions--said, ‘Come on!’ ” Vasser said.

And come on they did, Vasser going low on the two-mile track, Zanardi taking the high road, making sandwich meat of Moore, who, being out front, had no one to draft behind on a track where successful drafting is the secret to success.

“I had a six- or seven-length lead [just before the restart] and I thought that just might be enough,” Moore said of his precarious position. “They came out of nowhere. Then Alex got a little loose and I was able to get in Jimmy’s draft [and finish second].”

Zanardi?

“I knew I could stay ahead of Greg but I was wrong,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Greg found some grip where there was no grip.”

So Zanardi settled for third.

But it was a better third than most.

“I was very surprised,” Zanardi said, again with that funny little grin. “At the beginning of the race, I was pushing the car very hard but I was not going very fast. After the [stop-and-go penalty] I was almost two laps down. I was pretty lucky, and brave, and [team owner Chip Ganassi] made the right calls [on pit stops] and I was able to get up there.”

More grinning.

But Zanardi wasn’t grinning later when he said, answering a question, “I think racing is who has the guts to brake the latest.”

That’s the kind of driver CART is losing. The kind F1 is gaining. The kind any racing organization should be glad to have. Show ‘em some doughnuts, Alessandro.