From German 500 winner Sebastien
Bourdais on down to last place finisher Patrick Lemarie, the nineteen drivers
who took part in today's Champ Car race at EuroSpeedway Lausitz completed 2582
laps, for a total of 5164 miles.
source: cart.com And yet, as enthusiastically as the crowd received Bourdais and fellow podium finishers Mario Dominguez and Michel Jourdain, Jr., it is no stretch to say the emotional highlight of the weekend was reserved for a fellow who drove just 13 laps on Sunday; just 26 miles. That fellow is, of course, Alex Zanardi. The indomitable Italian returned to EuroSpeedway Lausitz this weekend with a mission in mind: to complete the 13 laps, the 26 miles he failed to complete in the inaugural Champ Car race in Germany back in 2001 thanks to the terrible crash that ended his racing career and so nearly took his life. Zanardi had made trial run here on Friday, driving the hand-operated Ford-Reynard around the speedway for some 40 laps just to make sure there would be no glitches today. At that, he was warmly, no, passionately received by the 10,000 or so fans on hand for the pre-race weekend activities. But that was just a warm-up to today's emotional reception, one that featured hundreds of hand-held air horns greeting his every lap, a human wave that followed him around the grandstands that surround the 2 mile speedway and, finally, a thundering ovation when he climbed out of the race car on pit lane. About the only thing missing was a series of Zanardi doughnuts.
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