Zanardi in great spirits, says Vasser

The American paid a visit to see Zanardi last week at the Marzahn Hospital in Berlin, along with the Italian's team owner Mo Nunn and wife Kathryn, Tony Kanaan and Max Papis.

"I spent two days with Alex and the more time made it easier for me because I had a lot of things I wanted to say to him," said Vasser, who was Zanardi's team mate from 1996 to '98 at Chip Ganassi Racing. "He's a wonderful person and we were all worried we'd lost him. I'm just so thankful he's alive and so is he.

"Alex made it easy on us because he's got a better attitude than most people could imagine going through what he has," continued the 1996 CART champion. "He's in the right frame of mind and he's ready to get started on his rehabilitation."

Nunn echoed Vasser's upbeat view: "The doctors told us before we went in that if we were going to break down or cry, then we needed to stay away and not see him because we all needed to be strong with him," said Nunn, who engineered Zanardi's back-to-back CART titles in '97 and '98 for Ganassi before signing him up for his Champ Car comeback this year.

"I didn't know if I could handle it, but Alex was happy to see us and he made a couple of little jokes. He has a tremendous spirit."

Zanardi has even been able to joke about his condition. "We were always talking about a driver's weight and how it might give some guys an advantage," said Kanaan. "Alex looks at me and says: 'Hey man, I'm much lighter now than you are.' Jimmy and I just shook our heads and smiled. The old Zanardi was still alive."

Nunn said Zanardi was curious about what happened in the accident that took place with 12 laps to go of the German race. "He doesn't even remember warm-ups or anything that happened that entire day," said Nunn. "He asked if the accident was his fault and we told him he gassed it real hard on the exit of the pits and it got away.

"It was difficult for him to talk because he still had that little tube in his throat, but it didn't look like anything was wrong with him. No bruises or anything. He looked good."

Kathryn Nunn is thankful that Zanardi's wife Daniella is equally equipped to handle such a traumatic situation.

"Daniella is so happy he's alive that she can handle anything else," she said. "She is a very strong woman. They're Italians and all their family is rallying around them. It's very comforting."

"You know how those Italians are, always kissing people," Mo Nunn added. "Alex had been trying to kiss me for the past five years and I would not let him. But when I left the other day, I agreed to finally give him a kiss. He liked that."

Kanaan asked Zanardi how he felt. "He said he'd had better days, but that he was thankful to be alive and happy he would be able to watch his son (Niccolo) grow up. I know Alex and at some point he's going to get mad, but he's in the best shape he can be considering what happened because he's so strong.

"I was thinking about him flying back home to Miami yesterday and I kept asking myself why bad things happen to good people like Zanardi. The only answer I could come up with was that he was the only one strong enough to show us how to live through something like this."