January 29, 2024

Listening to the 24 Hours of Daytona IMSA Race as I write this and there is one hour left to race! Pulling for my friend Pipo Derani in the Cadillac who had the fastest pole position ever at the track and has led many of the laps. Team Penske Porsche with Pipo's old teammate Felipe Nazr is leading right now...

My blog this week is about one of our great Indy Car, CART and Champ Car drivers, Cristiano da Matta. He won the CART Championship in 2002 for Newman Haas Racing.

Cristiano drove F1, Indy Lights where he won the championship in 1998, F3, Formula Ford and more after starting racing in karts at 16 years old. His father was a 16 time Brazilian touring car champion so Christiano had racing in his blood.

On August 3rd in 2006 Christiano collided with a deer that ran across the track at Road America as he was coming up the hill to turn 6 during testing. Thankfully, Christiano survived but had a head injury that took him until September 21 before being released from the hospital in Neenah, Wisconsin. On September 24th he gave the command to start your engines at Road America for the Champ Car race.

Thanks to his great physical shape and a great safety team, he made it back to a race car in 2008 and then raced in 2009 and 2011 in the American LeMans Series.

The Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary (CARA) was formed years ago to help drivers and their families pay for medical services and other things.  Insurance for race drivers is like being a fisherman for a living. CARA has helped injured racers for years and had an auction with Autoweek magazine to raise money for the Christiano da Matta Recovery Fund.

I bid on a Firestone race tire signed by all the drivers and Paul Newman.  Surprisingly, I won it. I later had Mario Andretti sign it and that photo is on my Rich Zimmermann Photography Facebook page. The tire proudly sits in our race room/man cave.

Christiano is doing well now and so is his family. Did you know that he is a musician too?

Enjoy some photos of racer Cristiano through the years.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann