Doornbos sees stock rise in auto racing
View PDF | Print View
by: Guest
Total views: 66
Word Count: 1092
Jobs Cars Real Estate Apartments Local Shopping ShopLocal Newspaper Ads All Classifieds Create an Ad Find an Ad Sections ! TODAY'S EXTRAS News Hurricane 2007 Obituaries Sports Dolphins | Football Marlins | Baseball Heat | Basketball Panthers | Hockey Boxing Colleges FAU FIU FSU UF UM Golf Miami-Dade High Schools Broward High Schools Horse Racing Motor Sports Outdoors Olympics Other Sports Soccer Tennis Wrestling Miami-Dade Youth Sports Broward Youth Sports Entertainment Business Tropical Life Health Travel Opinion Columnists Visitor's Guide ElNuevoHerald.com Online Features Calendar of Events Contests Message Boards Special Publications Today's Front Page Traffic Reports Web Cams Podcasts Site Services Advertise RSS Feeds News by Email News by mobile About Us Site Map Past Articles PARTNERS WLRN | Miami Herald News CBS 4 WFOR-TV Newspaper in Education More Partners
As a youngster, Robert Doornbos dreamed of being Holland's next tennis star, of hitting backhand winners and overhead smashes on Centre Court at Wimbledon as countryman Richard Krajicek once did.
"He was like a hero to me," Doornbos said. "That's what I wanted to do."
That was until an unexpected weekend at a Formula One race in Belgium, when the then-17-year-old had his life take a sharp right turn. Overnight, Doornbos transferred his admiration for Krajicek to F1 superstar Michael Schumacher. Soon, he changed out of shorts and tennis shoes and into a fire-retardant suit and boots, and strapped on a helmet. It was game, set, start your engines.
"I got goosebumps and I decided that racing was my sport," the Champ Car driver said in the shade of his team's hospitality tent during a break in qualifying last weekend. "So the tennis racket went into the wall."
One of eight first-year drivers on this year's circuit, the 25-year-old is no ordinary rookie - and no ordinary racer.
With a second-place finish at the Grand Prix of Cleveland, Doornbos has finished among the top three in four of the season's first five events. He has 114 points, good for second in the overall series standings behind Sebastien Bourdais (117), Champ Car's three-time defending champion.
Doornbos' speedy rise through the racing pipeline has been impressive.
He had never been behind the wheel when he began driving in the Opel Lotus winter series in England in 1999, and Doornbos recalls some eventful practice sessions as he learned his craft.
"I would finish a lap and everyone would be like, 'Good lap time,'" he said, nodding and pretending to check a stopwatch. "And the next time around it was complete silence and 'Where's Robert?'
"Because they could find me crashed into some wall or upside down. I couldn't find the limit. I think guys who have done it a long time have a better feel, they've done thousands of races before they get into a car. It was an expensive first year to start. My dad said, 'Are you sure you still like it? Because the insurance company is not our best friend anymore.'"
Doornbos kept pressing the pedal, and as he climbed from Formula Three to F3000, his skills improved to the point that he was signed as an F1 test driver with Jordan Toyota and Red Bull Racing.
He replaced Christian Klien for the final three Formula One races last season, but when he was unable to secure a permanent starting spot for Red Bull, Doornbos asked for permission to find a U.S. team where he could develop his driving as well as satisfy his competitive juices.
Doornbos joined Minardi Team USA, but the affable Dutchman is still an F1 test driver - car racing's equivalent of an NFL backup quarterback. The travel is heavy, the workload isn't equal and the glory is one-sided as well.
After a rigorous week of tuning and fine-tuning a car, the test driver must step aside on the weekend.
"So the big boys can play," Doornbos said with a shrug. "The hardest part is on race weekend. I get jealous of David (Coulthard) and Mark (Webber). I was throwing bananas hoping they would slip."
Doornbos hasn't had to resort to any trickery to establish himself in the Champ Car World Series as the prize pupil in a strong class of first-year drivers.
On his way to finishing second behind Paul Tracy in Cleveland, Doornbos made some nice passing moves and showed a grittiness while jostling with other cars in the corners. Race officials felt some of his driving was dangerous and assessed him a drive-through penalty (a pass through the pits) for blocking - a docking that may have cost him a victory.
Doornbos didn't care for the punishment.
"In Europe we race a bit tougher than we do here in the States," he said.
With each race, Doornbos is learning more about the strategy unique to open-wheel racing in the United States, where pit stops, fuel conservation and using the right tires can make the difference.
The outgoing and quick-witted Doornbos, who always seems on the verge of cracking a joke, enjoys the camaraderie among the Champ Car drivers.
"I can walk up to any other team and see Bourdais and say, 'How are you doing?' In F1, you wouldn't do that. You walk from your garage to the track and back and that's it."
Doornbos, too, has gotten some awkward stares from a few Champ Car drivers, who have taken note that he travels with a personal trainer, something commonplace in F1 but not in a struggling series.
While in Las Vegas, he and his trainer ran from their hotel on the Strip to the airport with Doornbos in his racing suit.
"It's like Elvis is standing there, and you see me panting and almost collapsing," Doornbos said. "We've run in the desert in 115 degrees. He pushes me so hard that the races become easy."
Easy enough that Doornbos has returned to the postrace podium, a place he frequented early in his young career but hadn't since joining F1.
For him, there's nothing like being in the top three.
"It had been a while since I'd been sprayed with champagne," he said. "For a while the only time I got sprayed was at birthday parties."
Related: Doornbos sees stock rise in auto racing
Additional information:
From www.miamiherald.com:
Rating:
Not yet rated
Comments
No comments posted.
Add Comment
You do not have permission to comment. If you
log in, you may be able to comment.
