Alex Zanardi

This is the story of Alex Zanardi, two-time CART series champion, who nearly died in a racing accident which took both of his legs above the knees -- and recovered to race again in a race car with modified controls. Parts of this book were amazing. And then, for me, parts of it dragged. I'm a race fan and interested in Zanardi's career, but I really didn't want a blow-by-blow description of every race he ran during his championship seasons. And his ego showed through a bit. But, then, I think one needs pretty powerful self-esteem to accomplish the comeback that he did from such a serious accident. Some of the images were powerful -- the priest using motor oil spilled from his wrecked car to give him last rites; the fact that he lost so much blood, there were only two pints left in his system when he got to the hospital. His humor is sometimes delightful, as when he reports commenting to someone that he left his legs back in Berlin. I learned a lot about prosthetics (extremely difficult to fit and use when both legs are lost, and especially above the knees) and about the kind of drive it takes to thrive after such a terrible accident. I just wish the book were edited a bit more stringently.… (más)