Thrill of the Hunt

Alex Zanardi knows it is easier to win a race by starting on the pole, staying out in front and out of trouble, but there’s something in his adventurous Italian psyche that loves the thrill of coming from deep in the pack, clawing and scraping his way to victory.

His spirit will be tested today when he starts 20th, on the outside of the 10th row, in the 27th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“There’s a very fine line in racing between being a hero and an idiot,” the two-time CART champ car champion said as he contemplated how he will approach today’s 82-lap, 161.376-mile race around the twisting, 11-turn, 1.968-mile circuit across from the Queen Mary.

“If a daring move works, you can make a name for yourself, as I did that day in Laguna Seca. But if it doesn’t, then you are the idiot.”

It was at Laguna Seca in 1996 that Zanardi, then a CART rookie refugee from Formula One, took a shortcut across the famous Corkscrew turn, bouncing through the dirt, to take a victory away from Bryan Herta.

“Besides the two championships I won, the most memorable moments in my racing in this country were the win in Laguna Seca, one in 1997 when I fell almost a lap down in Cleveland and came back to win without the help of any yellows [caution flags] and my win here at Long Beach in 1998. For me that may have been the most thrilling of all.”

In that race, Zanardi started 11th but lost a lap and fell to 18th before starting a dramatic comeback, catching Herta for the lead two laps from the finish.

“That was the day I heard people cheering for me over the noise of my engine. I came around the hairpin with only a few laps to go to catch Bryan and I could hear all the cheers. I knew it was for me because they always tend to cheer for whoever is coming from behind.

“I actually was thinking to myself, ‘How can it be that I can hear people cheering? That can’t be happening.’ But the next time around, the cheering was even louder and I realized it really was the crowd I was hearing. That was a very special day. I was the hero.”

Of course, there were times when Zanardi was the idiot too. Like when he was fined $25,000 and put on probation in 1997 for rough driving after knocking Herta off the road at Vancouver. Or the day at Mid-Ohio in 1998 when he was docked $50,000 for taking an “unjustifiable risk.”

“Long Beach is my favorite race, it is the most important we have,” he said. “I feel so lucky to be here again. Also, I feel lucky to be back doing what I have a passion for--driving a race car. If I were to turn things upside down again Sunday, it would be so special to me, but you cannot plan these things.”

The elements are right for another wild ride up through the pack for Zanardi today as he will start deep in the 28-car field after being able to coax only a 100.245 mph lap out of his Honda-Reynard during a qualifying session Saturday that was intermittently rainy.

“It was a very strange session and there’s just nothing you can do about the weather,” he said. “The weather made it very tricky to decide on the exact set-up and traffic turned out to be a very big problem.”

Helio Castroneves, in one of Roger Penske’s red-and-white Marlboro Honda-Reynards, will start on the pole after a last-minute lap of 103.556 mph lap that bumped former Indianapolis 500 winner Kenny Brack off the No. 1 spot. Brack did 102.534 in one of Bobby Rahal’s Ford-Cosworth-powered Lolas.

“We went up and down trying to find the set-up because of the weather,” Castroneves said. “The track got much better this afternoon and the set-up was great for both dry and wet conditions. Since the sun came out toward the end of the session, I knew the last cars on the track would be fastest and, fortunately, I was one of the last ones out.”

For most of the qualifying, it appeared that Michel Jourdain Jr.’s early lap of 101.809 would hold up for the pole when rain began to fall, forcing later qualifiers to go out on slower rain tires.

However, when the drizzles stopped and crews began to switch to slick tires, six drivers moved ahead of the young Mexican.

That scenario also caused Zanardi to slide down the leaderboard, from a solid seventh all the way to 20th.

“I was on my best lap when the third red flag came out [because of an accident] and the lap didn’t count. My dashboard said I was eight-tenths of a second better than my previous lap. Despite everything I think we have a good car for the race. I’m hoping maybe I can do the same thing this year I did before. Hey, everybody can dream!”

Dreaming is one thing, but life is quite different now for the 34-year-old than it was when he came over from Europe in 1996 to become a teammate of Jimmy Vasser on Chip Ganassi’s Target team. Then he was hungry for an opportunity to drive after a disappointing year in which his F1 Lotus team folded in midseason. He and his young Italian wife settled in Indianapolis and traveled together to the races.

This time the scenario looks similar--he is coming back after being dropped by another F1 team, but the circumstances are much different.

This time around he is a wealthy man, perhaps $10 million richer from his F1 experience and he has not been in a race car for a year. His wife, Daniela, is staying at home in Monte Carlo with their 2 1/2-year-old son, Niccolo, and instead of living in Indianapolis, he is flying back and forth to be with his family between races.

The one constant is his working with Morris “Mo” Nunn, his engineer during the Ganassi years, and now owner of the Mo Nunn Racing two-car team. Tony Kanaan is Zanardi’s teammate. Nunn engineered three consecutive CART champions--Zanardi in 1998 and 1999 and Juan Montoya in 2000--before striking out on his own.

Why would he give up time playing with his son, relaxing with his wife on his 58-foot boat, Hakuna Matata (translation: “no worries for the rest of your life”), going with old friends to movies “where they speak Italian instead of English,” and doing whatever he pleased whenever he pleased?

“First of all, if not for the great passion I have for the sport, I could not come back after a year off and expect to do well. I am in an enviable position, I have known success, I have made a lot of money, so I can now drive again for the pure pleasure of doing it. What better place to enjoy myself than in a race car?

“I do not need to prove anything. I am very lucky. Some people have to get up and go to work at 5 every day.”

But he does need to prove something, he needs to prove that his 1999 season in Formula One, a year in which he failed to score a single point, was an aberration.

THE FACTS

* What: Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix.

* When: 1 p.m.

* TV: Channel 7

* Polesitter: Helio Castroneves.

* 2000 winner: Paul Tracy.

* LINEUP: D14