Return To CART and Lausitzring Crash
In the 2000 season Zanardi was not signed for a team, but was interested in a CART comeback. He tested for Mo Nunn and opted to sign to the team for 2001, however he was not successful for the most part.
In his most competitive race of 2001, he suffered a violent accident at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz on September 15. Zanardi started from the back of the grid and was gaining ground on his rivals. The crash occurred while Zanardi was leading the race in the closing laps. After a late pit stop, Zanardi was attempting to merge back onto the track when he accelerated abruptly and spun into the path of Patrick Carpentier. Carpentier was able to avoid him, but Alex Tagliani, who was just behind Carpentier at the time, could not and Zanardi's car was impacted from the side, behind the front wheel, severing the nose of the car. Zanardi lost both legs (one at and one above the knee) in the impact and nearly three-quarters of his blood volume, though rapid medical intervention saved his life. Further portions of his legs were amputated during three hours of surgery to clean and facilitate closing the wounds. This was the end of his open-wheel racing career.
Read more about this topic: Alex Zanardi
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return, cart and/or crash:
“And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before:
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.”
—John Clare (1793–1864)
“Mrs. Zajac knows you didn’t try. You don’t just hand in junk to Mrs. Zajac. She’s been teaching an awful lot of years. She didn’t fall off the turnip cart yesterday. She told you she was an old-lady teacher.”
—Christine Zajac, U.S. fifth-grade teacher. As quoted in Among Schoolchildren, “September” section, part 1, by Tracy Kidder (1989)
“At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses.”
—Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919)