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The Pics
With Emerson Fittipaldi, Champ Car team owner, 2 times F1 world Champion and CART champion in his team tent at the Cleveland Grand Prix
Emmo Interviews
Emmo makes a point, you gotta listen. The man's been there, done that!
Godspeed Emmo, you've been places even I could only dream about visiting!
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Champ Car drivers discuss their favorite grandprixcities™
Emerson Fittipaldi - Co-Owner Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing
Emerson Fittipaldi, or just plain "Emmo", is a creature apart. His Championships in both F1 (twice) and Champ Car (CART) make him one of a very select group of professional race drivers in the world. As I watched him give a television interview before he spoke to me, I saw experience that some of the young guns in the paddock would never have. He spoke about everything, he knew his place in the world, and he knew how much he was loved just for being "Emmo" so there was no need to pretend to be anything else. Self-individualization, your name is Emerson Fittipaldi. When I had the opportunity to speak, even briefly, to my first hero of racing, (I'm giving away my age) I jumped, and the meeting was nothing like I expected!
Emerson Fittipaldi strikes you as part latin playboy and part keen business man. After I'd given my blurb about grandprixcities™, he was was keen to know more, asked me more questions than I had planned to ask him, cut to the bone of the project with laser accuracy, establishing quickly how much I knew and had experienced, and then launched into an amusing display of gesticulations and knowing winks.
There was passion in his soul, not just for the old days, but for the world, and for the places his career had taken him to. He was intrigued at my topic and glad someone had finally gotten around to it. "This is good," he approved, "people can learn much from travel," glowing and sun tanned. While drivers go round and round in circles usually, Emmo gave the impression that he had been traveling a long straight line around and around the world, and that he had pretty much wrapped it up and savored it, still just a little perplexed and stunned at what his talent had allowed him to experience.
So I asked him, not wanting to take up too much of his time since he had more interviews lined up than half the current Champ Car drivers, what was his favorite race city to visit. He pushed up his sunglasses with a finger, looked hard at me through them as if to ask if I was ready, took a deep breath, and launched into a list as if he was ordering dinner. "I like," he began, "Monaco, yes, and Long Beach. I like Surfer's Paradise in Australia. Great place for fans and drivers. I like Monterey/Laguna Seca, Beautiful beaches if fans want to relax. Beautiful. I like."
It was like a King was giving out knighthoods. "I like Monza and Milano. I like, yes. I like, too, St. Pete, which we went this year for the first time too. I like Spa-Francorchamps and I like, yes I love Barcelona. Best food. And I like, and I chose to live there... I love very much Miami." And if every time he said "I like" he'd said "Emerson likes" I wouldn't have blinked because "I" and "Emerson Fittipaldi" are one and the same. It was a Royal "I" he used.
I couldn't resist but ask one more quick one. "And your favorite circuit to drive?" I slipped in, still amazed that I'd held my own along side this powerhouse of coolness for so long, and wondering if he'd have me hauled away to some dungeon for keeping up. He shook his finger at me as if putting me in my place... (see pic 3) "The old Nurburgring and the old Interlagos. The shaking finger said it all. No young whippersnapper driver, or travel writer, could ever again experience them or take them away from him, and both are collosal legends in the history of motorsport, as was my much adored interview subject. Emmo pulled rank on me, and we both smiled because HE knew that I understood.
Godspeed, Cvetko Ostroznik
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