Italian Renaissance

FIRST PROOF Date: Designer: Photo Michele Top Editor ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 1 maxim November 2014 Yeun Michele Research Copy IN 2001, A HORRIFIC CAR CRASH NEARLY COST RACECAR DRIVER ALEX ZANARDI HIS LIFE. WHAT IT DID COST HIM WERE HIS LEGS. BUT AGAINST ALL ODDS, THE ITALIAN ICON GOT BACK BEHIND THE WHEEL AND ONTO THE RACETRACK, AND THEN FOUND A NEW PURSUIT: PARACYCLING. WITHIN A YEAR HE’D WON THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP AND THE NEW YORK MARATHON. SO, CHEATING DEATH, ZANARDI WAS BORN AGAIN, MORE COMPETITIVE, MORE AT PEACE, AND HAPPIER THAN EVER. by JOSH DEAN photographs by TKTKTK TKTKTK TK TK TK KICKER sequam deruntio TMusciaeped quiatia demporio eturit aut faceper feruptat laborrupti tesectate adis nosamTam nulparc hilles eturi rescipsam estrum et officidus, nis eostTem qui optia cusdam nim ut quas et eseque ne ni sae dolorum et aruptas auda denimust, rerum as ma doluptati odi nectatu mendus. consequi omnihitis illuptas audionse pa ALEX ZANARDI CONSIDERS himself lucky. lament or regret something that happened is He says this while standing in front of a His ability to drive a car fast and efficiently a waste. It’s as pointless as fretting over your very small group of photos on an otherwise Aaround racetracks has provided him a life he height, or being born French and not Italian. bare set of walls in the immaculately clean never considered possible when he was “Once you put everything in the right and brightly lit sunken garage under his running around a small Italian village, the son perspective, even bad times can be an beach house. There’s a shot of himself with of the local plumber. He won two IndyCar opportunity to refresh your appetite, your his longtime friend and former team boss championships, in back-to-back years, before desire,” he says, absently tracing an Chip Ganassi, who brought him to America to returning to Europe to challenge himself in imaginary circle on the table. “What would race in the first place, and another of him Formula 1, the world’s most popular we all be without a project? Whether the celebrating his sixth consecutive pole, which motorsport. Along the way, he met his wife, project is something that you decide to look broke the Indy Car record. There’s an Daniela, in a race paddock, and she gave him for or something that destiny imposed on unfinished section of the basement next door his only child, Niccoló, now a healthy, happy you—like me after my accident—there’s no where Zanardi thinks he might one day put 16-year-old. He has two beautiful homes, difference. Because after so many years have the Indy Car Ganassi gave him last year—the more money than he can reasonably spend, passed, look at all the things I’ve done, all of one he drove his first season in America— and the kind of fame in Italy that enables him which are more or less directly related to my making good on an old promise. to go by a single name: Zanardi. condition. I’m comfortable in my life. I know When he’s upright, Zanardi braces himself But the thing he feels most fortunate about that I’m a lucky boy. Losing my legs was one on a set of carbon-fiber canes that help him might surprise you. Alex Zanardi, dashing of the greatest opportunities of my life.” balance and walk atop his two prosthetic racecar driver, feels lucky to have lost his legs. Contrary to popular rumor, he did not legs. “First, let me tell you that the perfect ALEX ZANARDI IS 47, which is old for a design these legs. “I don’t know where that life is not the one where everything is always professional auto racer and even older for an story came from,” he says. But he did design perfect. You only recognize how good elite cyclist, not that this concerns him in the some purpose-built prosthetics for swimming. something is if you’ve been through the bad,” slightest. Since recovering from the 2001 Traditional fake legs are too heavy for water, Zanardi says, from a chair on the roof deck/ crash, he’s been either a pro racer or an elite and to swim with no legs seemed to him both lounge atop his beachfront villa, on the cyclist, but this year, for the first time, he is difficult and grotesque: “Although my name is Tuscan shore. The view is spectacular. both at the same time. He’d been so busy Zanardi, and in my country I can’t avoid There’s ocean to the front—on a clear days racing hand cycles in recent years—piling up being recognized and cheered, I didn’t want you can see Corsica, Elba, and Sardinia—and awards and titles—that he forgot how much to go in the swimming pool and jump in the off the back are the verdant hills of the he missed motorsports. Then, two years ago water like a bag of potatoes.” His solution was Maremma coast, where Zanardi pedals his he tested a BMW touring car at the legendary to use a special foam designed for lining gas hand bike every morning. Nurburgring. A little over a year later, in tanks in racecars. It is light but strong and “The perfect life is the combination of great January, 2014, he announced he would return doesn’t absorb liquid. moments and bad ones, and under that point to car racing after a four-year hiatus, on the Design is something he enjoys. The villa’s of view, my life is fantastic because I’ve Blancpain Sprint Series. As of early August, garage is empty except for a tidy workbench certainly hit more than one bump,” Zanardi he was comfortably acclimated to his new and a pair of hand cycles he designed with continues, smiling because we both know BMW Z4 GT3, outfitted with hand controls so help from an Italian racecar builder near his which bump he’s referring to, and that’s a that he can race it at high speeds without the other home, in Bologna. The one he races funny and absurd way of describing a 2001 use of his legs. looks a little like the motorcycle from Dark crash, during a race in Germany, so violent “I can’t say I’m still in the middle of it, but Knight–era Batman; low-slung and that it tore both of his legs off below the there are still some things I can do in aerodynamic, made from carbon fiber and so knees. The way he sees it, the accident was motorsports and paracycling,” Zanardi says, light that he can lift it over his head easily fate, and fate is beyond our control. To “Despite my age, I can still do some stuff.” with one arm—which you can see him doing 3 maxim November 2014 in celebration photos after winning a By the time medics reached him, Zanardi not sure he would give up the experiences Paralympic gold medal in London in 2012. was in shock. Blood poured from the stumps he’s had because of the crash in exchange for A few days before I arrived in Italy, Zanardi that remained of his legs in such volume that his legs; at least, it would be a difficult won his second World Cup race of the season it formed pools under the car. His heart decision. “When I was a little kid, my dad in Spain, solidifying his position as the stopped seven times on the helicopter that always told me, ‘Listen, life is a great world’s top hand cyclist. This morning he’d flew him to Berlin, and he lived for more opportunity. It can bring you amazing things gone out for a long training ride, because the than 50 minutes with less than a single liter that you cannot even dream of. But if you World Championships loom ahead at the end of blood left in his body until the doctors want to make this happen, you have work of August. “It’s still warm,” he jokes, as I run were finally able to begin a transfusion. hard to turn your dreams into objectives that a hand over the smooth, curved side of the When Zanardi woke up, eight days later, he are potentially achievable. So take every day bike’s cockpit. Zanardi will fly almost directly didn’t remember a minute of the race. His as an opportunity to add something to your to the World Championships in South injuries had been so devastating that doctors life.’” When he was young, Zanardi says, he Carolina from a Blancpain Sprint Series stop weren’t sure what would remain of his bodily didn’t really understand what his father in Slovakia, with only a one-night stopover in functions, if anything. But other than the fact meant, but this was the message he heard Italy to pick up his bike and see his son. that he had no legs—and was in excruciating again and again during his recovery. Driving and cycling each offer Zanardi pain—Zanardi seemed to be fine. “I didn’t “When I announced to people that I’m something different, but he can’t say which know what exactly had happened, but I had going back to drive a racecar, everyone asked one he prefers. Auto racing is more viscerally a vague idea,” he recalls. “And I was happier me, ‘After what happened to you, aren’t you thrilling, but it requires the close than a pig in shit to be alive.” scared to jump into a car again?’ This is a collaboration of many people, and a driver is He has said, in past interviews, that he’s very irrational question, because I’m not any only as good as his car and crew.

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