Car CultureMembers OnlyMotorsport & RacingSpecial Feature

Saving Alex Zanardi

Steve Natale
Dr. Stephen E. OlveyPhoto: Dan R. Boyd USA LAT Photographic
Dr. Stephen E. Olvey
Photo: Dan R. Boyd USA LAT Photographic

I met Alex Zanardi back in the late ’90s when he first came into Indycar racing. My impression at the time was: what a happy, friendly guy. Alex is the type of person who shortly after you first meet him you feel like you’d known him for a long time, and that he was going to be a good friend.

One of the most important parts of my job as Director of Medical Affairs for CART was to make sure that the medical facilities we might have to use at a particular event were in place, that we went to the right hospital, used the right ambulance service, had the right helicopter, had the right doctors on call, knew who the best surgeons were and so on. This task was much more difficult to do when you went overseas, because of unfamiliarity and language issues.

Main Topic Hubs

Join The Community

Become A Member

 

Members only$29 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

Supercars.net Membership is for people who'd rather know the spec sheet by heart than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • Thousands of members-only stories

    Deep dives, driven reviews and the full archive back to 2005.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • Every car, every spec

    Twenty years of models, numbers and history in one place.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every Supercars.net shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join Supercars.net — Keep Reading

$29 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CAR PEOPLE, NOT A NAMELESS MEDIA COMPANY. Your membership keeps a small independent team that celebrates the brands and cars that defined this industry doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $29/yr