Twenty-four-year-old Jacques Villeneuve drives out of the iconic Indianapolis
Motor Speedway with the world at his feet.
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Monday after the day before, a day that forever changed the life of the young
Canadian. That day Villeneuve, fittingly driving the number 27 that become so
synonymous with his father Gilles at Ferrari, comes from two laps down to win
the 1995 Indianapolis 500. He had spent the day smiling and posing for hundreds
of photographs that are beamed all across the world. By the end of the year he
has a multi-year contract in his pocket at the best team in Formula One,
Williams-Renault. Within two years Villeneuve is World Champion and is a star
everywhere he goes. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis 500 continues on without him. As
Villeneuve departed for Europe, IndyCar split in two and has never fully
recovered from the bitter divorce. The Indy 500s list of drivers in the late 90s
lacked real star power and it lost a grip on being the biggest race in the
world. Slowly the giant teams like Penske, Ganassi and Andretti returned and
with them came world class, elite drivers. For some ten years now, the Indy 500
is back to what it once was, testing some of the greatest single-seater drivers
the world has to offer. It is the second Sunday in May and Jacques Villeneuve,
now 43, drives back inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Dressed in a yellow
race suit with Dollar General written all over it he looks nothing like what
many would expect a former F1 World Champion to look. He doesnt have the amount
of hair he once had but he is back at Indy as a driver, the first time in 19
years. He stops to sign autographs and pose for photographs as he makes that
famous walk, paved by greatness, that the likes of A.J. Foyt, Jim Clark, Rick
Mears and other stars have taken, alongside Gasoline Alley to the pit lane. The
diehard fans stare and flock towards him but he is far from the main attraction
at the Speedway. Villeneuve, not a regular on the IndyCar circuit, does
remarkably well with attention but here he is just another driver, one that
doesnt travel in packs with fellow drivers. He is a man from past glories back
to recreate new memories of his own. "I hardly know anyone to be honest. I know
(Takuma) Sato, but I never raced against him and I have never raced against
anyone who is a regular in this series. That is weird because I dont know what
to expect, I dont know how they race. Which one is clean? Dirty? Crazy? So its
definitely a bit strange, yes." The answer is typical Jacques. He talks of not
knowing anyone but immediately he means as drivers, not as men. Our conversation
immediately turns to scenarios that can take place on the track. Villeneuve
doesnt talk in clichés and for someone who has done as much media as he has in
his life, he remains a refreshingly deep-thinker who can take you on the same
journey as his mind. We talk about this upcoming Sunday and the Indy 500, and
the point when he will be travelling in excess of 230 miles per hour with cars
all around him. His eyes squint as he dictates word-for-word his precise
thoughts as he gets set to compete in what he describes as the biggest race in
the world. "The complexity of this race now is running in traffic. The cars have
two hundred horsepower less than 19 years ago and much more grip and to be able
to stay super close to the cars, while everyone is running flat out, the key is
to stay close to someone else, (ready for) when he has to lift, back out a
little bit because of the traffic in front of him, then you steal his momentum.
"Thats really tough, as you get in the turbulent air behind someone, your whole
car is shaking and thats when the car starts sliding and you can lose the front
end or the rear end a little bit and, at that point, do you have the guts to
keep your foot down or not and is your car working in that situation?" This is a
world he has little control in, a frightening thought for even the greatest of
race drivers. Villeneuve, who will start, fittingly, in the 27th spot for
Sundays race, continues: "I will be surrounded by guys who respect the danger
and others who think its a video game and, at those speeds, its risky and thats
what I still dont know, who to trust and who not to trust out there. With more
grip and less horsepower, the cars are very forgiving. I have got sideways a few
times already this month and if I did that 19 years ago I would have been in the
wall. "I think they give a false sense of security for some of the drivers and
thats why you see kids coming in and, within three laps, they are flat out
because I dont think they respect how dangerous it is. Once you get caught out,
then you start respecting it and at Indianapolis there are two kinds of drivers,
the ones who have hit the wall and the ones who havent hit the wall." It is
clear Villeneuve is almost as concerned about those who havent hit the wall than
hitting the wall himself. "This is not a track where you want to make a mistake.
The speeds we go is exciting, it is unparalleled. It is a long race and my
approach (in the past) was to mind your own business and it will come to you.
You have to know when to take a risk and when not to. Normally in the first
half, the idiots will crash themselves out so if you can stay clean to 100 laps
then that can be useful!" There arent too many drivers in IndyCar who will refer
to some of the colleagues as idiots but this is what comes with the honest,
direct Villeneuve who survived the world of Formula One without turning into a
robot, something very few have done in recent years. He admits he still watches
Formula One but not the same way he once did: "I dont like or understand the
reason behind the new rules but we have had some amazing races this year. Why?
Only because the teammates have been allowed to fight. When you had Prost and
Senna (at McLaren in the late 80s) they would lap the field but everyone was
happy so we have a bit of that now with Lewis (Hamilton) and Nico (Rosberg).
"The rules themselves, though, are not F1. The sport should be out of this
world, not reality. You should look at it and say thats crazy how do these guys
manage to drive these kinds of cars at those speeds. In the original turbo
engine era they would do qualifying and then throw the engine in the garbage.
Thats F1. It should be so extreme that when you are at home, and you are not a
racer, you know thats another world. Now you are at home and think I could do
that. There is nothing special about it anymore." The man who won 11 Grand Prix
races has never been one to focus too much on the past but it is clear he knows
those eras were far superior to modern day F1. He smiles when asked about the
1997 season but moves off from it as quickly as it comes up. "It was fun but I
dont dwell on the past, I never have and thats why I want my kids to see me
drive. I dont want to be for my kids, the guy that used to race that they can
see in books." Those books tell a remarkable tale of one of the finest Canadians
to ever compete in any sport. On Sunday at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing
another chapter is to be written.
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surprising Calgary Flames host the winless New Jersey Devils at the Scotiabank
Saddledome on Friday.
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Bleackley got it done in regulation time and in the shootout. NEW YORK --
Reliever Kyle Farnsworth has agreed to a minor league contract with the New York
Mets and will report to spring training as a non-roster player. The 37-year-old
right-hander was 3-1 with two saves and a 4.70 ERA in 48 games last year with
Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh, which signed him in August after he was released by
the Rays. His fastball averaged 95-98 mph early in the season, according to
fansgraphs.com, then dropped to 92-96 mph later in the year. Farnsworth would
get a $1 million, one-year contract if added to the 40-man roster and could earn
$1.5 million in performance bonuses. He could make $500,,000 based on games:
$75,000 each for 40, 45, 50 and 55, and $100,000 apiece for 60 and 65.
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earn $1 million based on games finished: $100,000 each for 30 and 35, $250,000
apiece for 40 and 45, and $300,000 for 50. Farnsworth has a 43-63 record with 54
saves and a 4.26 ERA and 945 strikeouts in 960 innings. Hes pitched for the
Chicago Cubs (1999-04), Detroit (2005, 2008), Atlanta (2005, 2010), the New York
Yankees (2006-08), Kansas City (2009-10), Tampa Bay (2011-13) and Pittsburgh
(2013), and had a career-high 25 saves for the Rays in 2011. His agreement was
announced Monday.
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