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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Kanaan--It Wasn’t My Time
In one of his more candid and poignant interviews, Tony Kanaan reflects on what he's learned about himself in the wake of his big crash in Baltimore.
Tony Kanaan had to pose a lot of tough questions to himself before going racing in Baltimore. (LAT)
At a time on Sunday morning when many Americans were driving to their place of worship, Tony Kanaan was holding an impromptu prayer meeting of his own on Baltimore’s West Pratt Street.
Strapped inside an Indy car with failed brakes and hurtling towards a cement wall at 168 mph, Kanaan’s value system, priorities and approach to life were about to be called into question.
Kanaan had hit walls at higher rates of speed, had been shot airborne before and knew what it was like to be on fire, but the situation he encountered in Turn 1 forced him to confront with his mortality in new and different ways.
After the spectacular crash—one where he made a split-second choice to steer left into his old friend Helio Castroneves to avoid the oncoming wall—Kanaan had his faith and resolve tested like never before.
Faith and worship are two topics that are rarely discussed in public by IZOD IndyCar drivers, but after what he encountered in Baltimore, Kanaan said he took it as a divine wakeup call.
“I had bad crashes in my life,” he said in the post-race press conference, “including the Indianapolis one, it was huge, back a couple of years ago, but this morning I woke up and I was in a bad mood, and I was complaining about things that didn't really matter and I think [God] wanted to tell me I have a good [life], so I have to really think about that.”
After a few days of introspection, and in one of his most raw and honest interviews to date, Kanaan shared his thoughts about what he learned from a crash that could have easily ended his life.
“You get greedy in life,” he told SPEED.com. “I should have learned a lesson. I’m a better person after what happened last year (when a tough season was capped by losing his lucrative ride at Andretti Autosport). The problem with racing drivers is this: If racing is good, life is good. If the racing is bad, life is bad. And that’s been a very difficult part for me to separate. If I have a bad race, I have a bad week until the next race.
“Usually, [racing drivers] are going to be competitive, and selfish, and alone and we’re not going to share anything. It’s hard to make friends because you can’t trust anybody. And I guess, over the years, me, Dario [Franchitti], Greg [Moore], Max [Papis], [Alex] Zanardi, Jimmy [Vasser], and some of the other guys, we changed that a little bit. But looking at the whole racing world, there’s still a lot of selfishness there. That’s a hard part of your nature to change.”
Kanaan’s weekend prior to the crash on Sunday hadn’t been a disaster by any means, but with the bar for happiness being set incredibly high--at accepting nothing less than a pole position or a win--he awoke in a bit of a funk.
“Five days before the season I didn’t have a job,” he said. “Now, before the crash, look at me. I was complaining about being sixth in the championship, I wasn’t having a good weekend at Baltimore, just had two DNFs, and yeah, it was just a brief moment, but you feel selfish and greedy. You want to win and to be competitive. After the crash, I could have said, ‘I’ve been successful; I’ve had a good career. I’m going to go home now and spend time with my family and play at the beach and do something different with my life.’ I’m not getting paid to race this year; that’s no secret. It’s the other way around. So I didn’t have to keep going after I crashed. But that was the first test on Sunday. I didn’t quit.”
After returning to the KV Racing transporter, Kanaan took some time to compose himself and then decided on how he should process the ordeal.
“The first thing that came to my mind was that I can’t come back being the same old TK. I’m not just saying that in a fake way. I believe that things are put in your path that will make you better for it. That’s how I saw it. And I thought about my son, big time. Having chosen to be a professional racing driver—and for anybody who chooses a life in racing—you have no time for anything else. I thought about losing my dad and growing up without him (cancer took Kanaan’s father when he was 11). So I thought about my son and said that I don’t want him to grow up like that. So I thought about it for half an hour to decide whether I wanted to get back in that car and keep doing this.”
Strapped inside an Indy car with failed brakes and hurtling towards a cement wall at 168 mph, Kanaan’s value system, priorities and approach to life were about to be called into question.
Kanaan had hit walls at higher rates of speed, had been shot airborne before and knew what it was like to be on fire, but the situation he encountered in Turn 1 forced him to confront with his mortality in new and different ways.
After the spectacular crash—one where he made a split-second choice to steer left into his old friend Helio Castroneves to avoid the oncoming wall—Kanaan had his faith and resolve tested like never before.
Faith and worship are two topics that are rarely discussed in public by IZOD IndyCar drivers, but after what he encountered in Baltimore, Kanaan said he took it as a divine wakeup call.
“I had bad crashes in my life,” he said in the post-race press conference, “including the Indianapolis one, it was huge, back a couple of years ago, but this morning I woke up and I was in a bad mood, and I was complaining about things that didn't really matter and I think [God] wanted to tell me I have a good [life], so I have to really think about that.”
After a few days of introspection, and in one of his most raw and honest interviews to date, Kanaan shared his thoughts about what he learned from a crash that could have easily ended his life.
“You get greedy in life,” he told SPEED.com. “I should have learned a lesson. I’m a better person after what happened last year (when a tough season was capped by losing his lucrative ride at Andretti Autosport). The problem with racing drivers is this: If racing is good, life is good. If the racing is bad, life is bad. And that’s been a very difficult part for me to separate. If I have a bad race, I have a bad week until the next race.
“Usually, [racing drivers] are going to be competitive, and selfish, and alone and we’re not going to share anything. It’s hard to make friends because you can’t trust anybody. And I guess, over the years, me, Dario [Franchitti], Greg [Moore], Max [Papis], [Alex] Zanardi, Jimmy [Vasser], and some of the other guys, we changed that a little bit. But looking at the whole racing world, there’s still a lot of selfishness there. That’s a hard part of your nature to change.”
Kanaan’s weekend prior to the crash on Sunday hadn’t been a disaster by any means, but with the bar for happiness being set incredibly high--at accepting nothing less than a pole position or a win--he awoke in a bit of a funk.
“Five days before the season I didn’t have a job,” he said. “Now, before the crash, look at me. I was complaining about being sixth in the championship, I wasn’t having a good weekend at Baltimore, just had two DNFs, and yeah, it was just a brief moment, but you feel selfish and greedy. You want to win and to be competitive. After the crash, I could have said, ‘I’ve been successful; I’ve had a good career. I’m going to go home now and spend time with my family and play at the beach and do something different with my life.’ I’m not getting paid to race this year; that’s no secret. It’s the other way around. So I didn’t have to keep going after I crashed. But that was the first test on Sunday. I didn’t quit.”
After returning to the KV Racing transporter, Kanaan took some time to compose himself and then decided on how he should process the ordeal.
“The first thing that came to my mind was that I can’t come back being the same old TK. I’m not just saying that in a fake way. I believe that things are put in your path that will make you better for it. That’s how I saw it. And I thought about my son, big time. Having chosen to be a professional racing driver—and for anybody who chooses a life in racing—you have no time for anything else. I thought about losing my dad and growing up without him (cancer took Kanaan’s father when he was 11). So I thought about my son and said that I don’t want him to grow up like that. So I thought about it for half an hour to decide whether I wanted to get back in that car and keep doing this.”
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