Not only do I feel for him as a race car driver, but someone that loves racing not ever being able to drive again will be a devastating loss to him as well.

 

I'm a Big Zanardi fan. I don't know what to say, he is a great guy and a great race car driver.

Very sad.

 

With a week marked with such a tragedy, how could CART have a "the show must go on" attitude?!?!

Very, very sad.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by wickerbill
[B]

Why should they have cancelled the race?

 

All of the cars and equipment were in Germany before the nightmare. They said it was near impossible to reschedule it. This was the first race at a brand new track and it had been sold out for a long time. I'm sure it was and will be heavily debated but what's done is done and like Tuesday, we can not turn back the clock.

I just saw the video replay and it truly is a miracle he's alive. As we all know he's a driver's driver and he will need a lot of prayers.

 

This is truly a sad, sad day in motorsports...

I am sure CART will get a lot of flack for NOT cancelling the race, but you know it doesn't really matter at this point.

I for one do not see how cancelling the race would have shown more respect than running it. There was a ceremony and from what I hear the drivers honored those who lost their lives on Tuesday...

Poor Alex. He has been to me a model of someone who never gives up. From his pre-CART days in the early 90s when he never said die, to his triumphs with the Target/Chip Ganassi team, to his desperation in F1 running a horrible season with a team that was a shadow of their former glory, to the 2001 season -- full of so much hope that never seemed to materialize...

and now, with a possibility of a podium finish he suffers the loss of his legs, and the end of a career... tragic.

This has truly been a horrible week. When Greg Moore died in 1999, I was quite saddened. I said to myself that CART wasn't really the same anymore since Zanardi was in F1 and Moore had died... I had a renewed excitement when Zanardi returned. Now that he will not be racing anymore, its very hard to deal with this...

What a terrible, tragic week in terms of losses... Talk about the American Spirit -- we will survive, and we will triumph from our setbacks... Alex has a strong will and I for one hope that he doesn't give up after this...

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dlq04
[B]They said it was near impossible to reschedule it.

 

I don't understand why everyone is giving CART such a bad time by running the race. Did you hear that the whole purse from the race was donated to the Relief fund? That there was a big memorial service before the race and that the Germans who attended the race felt it was a great way for them to show their support of the US in these times? They were already there, name a good reason why they should cancel the race instead of dedicating it as the American Memorial race? Since when is doing nothing more respectful than honoring the dead and doing your best to support the recovery efforts. If I had been killed on Tueday, I would hope that people would get back on with their lives as soon as possible so the terrorists wouldn't win.

Here's a great quote I grabbed off of speedvision.com:
Don't forget that a big reason that NASCAR postponed their race is because of travel concerns. CART didn't have those problems. I firmly believe that if the CART race had been in the US or Canada, they would have postponed it

To compare this to the Texas cancellation is pathetic. I was at Texas and wasted a whole Sunday for that race, yet I wasn't mad that that race was canceled. I was mad that they didn't make that decision earlier that weekend, but no sane person can argue that they should have run that race given the problems the drivers were having. NASCAR might have, but they have proven that they don't care about driver safety half as much as CART does.

Let's spend less time bitching about CART and pray that Alex recovers and more importantly for the families that were affected in NYC and DC this week.

 

I feel bad about Zanardi, just as I felt bad about Senna and Rainey (F1 Motorcycle) but right now "racing" is pretty f**king insignificant.

We should cancel all racing and sporting events for the next year. Do it out of respect and because we, as Americans, have a short memory and would rather be entertained than be concerned about something that is going on far from home. You won't have to remind anyone in NYC area, it's the rest of the country and some of our politicians that will need reminding.

It just makes me ill to think that six months from now we will be back to our normal lives while 5000 or more families will never get back to "normal".

And what about the war? Right now everyone is screaming for blood, but what will our attitude be in a year if we haven't wiped them out or we haven't been able to watch any good bombing on TV. Will we still have our resolve when we start seeing bodybags instead of the pictures of the World Trade Center every night?

I think this country is going to have to stay angry for a awhile if we are going to win this war, so I say get rid of some of our luxuries as a little reminder. Make it personal.

I just don't think everyone understands the severity of what happened this week.

 

The problem I see with that is it would make the Americans as crazy as the assholes that did this to us. All we would do is sit around and think about revenge and the anger we have towards them. That's not healthy and that's definitely not American. That's the kind of environment that produces these terrorists.

Where do you draw the line? Should we get rid of TV, movies, the comics section in the newspaper? There have been many awful things that have happened to people in history and sitting around and brooding about it is not the healthiest way to deal with it. I'm not saying racing is real important now. I don't think it is for the drivers either. I know that I didn't think my work was too important this past week but it doesn't change the fact that life goes on. I was fortunate enough not to be involved so I need to carry on and prove those bastards can't change us for the worse. If we got rid of all recreational activities for the next year, the terrorists would be overwhelmed at how successful they were whether we bomb some of their bases or not.

Maybe everybody on this board should get rid of their S2000's and get something less fun in some sort of show of respect for the people that were killed last week. That would accomplish nothing just as stopping a big part of economy (professional sports) wouldn't accomplish anything. I think everybody should carry on as normal as possible while remembering what has happened. That's the best revenge for what the terrorists have done to our country.