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Wednesday, February 28, 2001
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Once a rough business By Christopher P. Winner Dr. Steven Bohannon, Daytona's emergency medicine chief, who reached the battered black car after the crash, said he knew immediately that Earnhardt was dying; he saw blood in his ears and airways, and no sign of life.-- The New York Times ... on the death of stock car racer ... Dale Earnhardt at the Daytona 500, Feb. 19, 2001. For a while I would see it in my sleep. The black and silver Lotus turned to char. For a while I would see the room where they put him. It had white tiles and a Jesus cross above the dolly. I was assigned to cover the Italian Grand Prix early in my time with United Press International. In those years, the 1970s, there was one race in Italy, at Monza, near Bologna, in September. Normally, the bureau chief, Jack Payton, a fine writer and a fan of cars, took time to cover the race -- he had worked in Florida, Daytona 500 country. But it was 1978. A pope had died in August and a new one had barely been elected. The daily bureau work had been brutal. Jack said, "You go. Have some fun." It seemed odd to suddenly leave behind the Vatican and its colorful, nearly cotton candy, rituals -- funny hats and slow parades -- for the whine of machines in the warm and foggy northlands. But Formula One that season belonged to an Italo-American veteran, Mario Andretti, and his new Lotus 79. With its silver trim, rakish black body and V8 Ford engine, Andretti's car was poised to win the world championship at Monza. The remarkable racer was sponsored by a tobacco company and was often referred to simply as the John Player Special, or JPS. Only one man could still catch Andretti in September, his JPS teammate Ronnie Peterson, a Swede. I lodged in a small hotel outside Monza. It was damp and sticky. During the test runs on Friday and Saturday, Andretti was distracted, annoyed, and I far too shy to disturb him unduly. "Mr. Andretti! Mr. Andretti!" I shouted after him as he walked from the paddock to a mobile home. But another voice said, "Leave him alone. I'll talk to you..." He was very blond and ruggedly handsome. At 47, I remember him as a very young man, but he was already 34 and also a veteran. "Sure, it's nice to drive with Mario. But for me he is no legend. He is just a driver. This is a rough business." The two men were in fact bitter rivals. Although on the same team, Peterson had long sought the title Andretti was nearing. He felt slighted. He had started 124 Grand Prix, and won 10, but the spotlight was wholly on the American, who had won at both Indianapolis and Daytona in the '60s. In the next two days I grew strangely close to Ronnie Peterson. He smiled at me, or so it seemed. I felt less estranged among the choke of reporters who swarmed around the two men as the race neared. On race day, a Sunday, it began to unravel. In the morning sessions, Peterson slammed the JPS into a railing. It was hopelessly damaged and he was forced to start the race in an older car, the Lotus 78. Monza in those days was a widow-maker. There was a double-S turn (since amended) about 50 meters from the start. I still remember only the screaming of the engines, that was the beginning -- and then, quickly, smoke. Peterson probably did not know what hit him. His car was burdened with 200 liters of fuel, a brimming tank. When the double-S narrowed the field, stones into a vacuum nozzle, the collisions began. Peterson's car, traveling at more than 100 mph, was jack-knifed into a guardrail, then struck broadside by another car. The JPS exploded. A Briton, James Hunt, pulled Peterson from the flames. The double impact had caved his legs into him, crushing them. I heard only sirens. "Check out the hospital," said the agency. Niguarda was the hospital. A gaunt doctor read a medical bulletin about trauma and burns, but added the word "stable." I embraced that word like hope itself. There would be no death. But body trauma is insidious, a roving torpedo. In the night, Ronnie Peterson's shattered limbs developed blood clots. Bits of minced bone circulated into his brain and heart. The Italians have a word for it, "l'obitorio" -- the morgue or mortuary. I do not know, to this day, how the photographer got me inside, or why. A bribe. A connection. "Quickly," he whispered. And there, under a simple white sheet, was Ronnie Peterson. He smelled like ether. For a while I would see it in my sleep. The black and silver Lotus turned to char. For a while I would see the room where they put him. The meaningless cross. And then, conveniently, I just forgot. Christopher P. Winner's e-mail address is cpwinner@praguepost.cz
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