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« Back den 1 januari 2005 Happy New Year! Dear friends, It’s the first of January 2005 and I am sitting in my home in Sweden. Today is exactly 1 year ago since I left the hospital “for good” after the crash in early October 2003. As you know I spent most of 2004 rebuilding myself back to “normal” and today I feel I have come a long way although I still feel I make small improvements here and there. But today there are nothing left from the accident that challenges my daily life. Since we spoke last time I have done another race, the Race of Champions, this time held in France. If was a magnificent event held in a stadium right inside Paris with nearly 60.000 people on Race day. Many if the worlds biggest motor sport stars were there, M. Schumacher, D. Coulthard, C Loeb, J. Johnson, T. Kanaan, J. Alesi etc. I was a little nervous how I would feel getting back behind the wheel in an event like this after having been away for such a long time. At least it feels like a long time for me as I have been racing every year for over 20 years. To be honest I was not sure I would enjoy driving as much as one need to. But that all was put to rest in the first corner after I got behind the wheel. This is what I know and I really love it. The event could not have started worse for myself. In the Race of Champions last time, 2002, I made a very strong impression, going furthest of all racing drivers and even beating some of the world champion rally drivers in their own material on their own surface. This time I was knocked out of the event in the first heat. Of course there were 8 other drivers of the 16 that were invited to compete that suffered the same fate. I guess “some have to win and some have to lose” but it felt unnecessary. I was very fast in the “Race of Champion” cars we drove. In fact I set one of the fastest lap times of everybody in this car in practice, but going into the second corner in my first competition heat I made a mistake and brushed the wall. Nothing big, but enough to cost me some time, and on top of that, a 10 second penalty on the total time. It was over before it really started. The challenge in this type of events is that you don’t really know how the car behaves in detail as you might end up in a car that you have not driven before. The cars are supposed to be the same, and most of the time they are, but still they do not behave exactly the same so you have to figure out what the car you drive at the time needs. The other challenge is that the track changes from one heat to the next. Since the heats are very short you cannot afford to give up any time so despite these “unknown elements” you just have to charge maximum from the first corner. Normally I respond quickly and have a very good feeling for these things but my “rustiness”, lack of competition experience in 2004, in combination of the challenge from the best drivers in the world made the difference this time I guess. Still I feel it was unnecessary since I had the speed to win and perhaps because of this could have been a little more careful until I knew my car better. The “individual” event was won by a Finnish driver, Heikki Kovalainen, Nissan World Series Champion 2005. I was very impressed with him, perhaps not so much because he won, because this is sometimes a little luck in an event like this, but more by the way he adapted to be competitive in all kind of cars. There was no car he was not fast in. Despite the result for my part it was still a great event to be part of. After this I went on vacation to St. Martin in the Caribbean for two weeks. It was my first vacation with a “real” family since Karma now is part of the picture. On top of that we had another family join us there with three kids, and I can tell you that I have never before been on a vacation that means more work than working! I was flat out from the time we got there to the time we left. From there we went to Sweden to celebrate Christmas, New Years Eve and Karmas first birthday on New Years Eve. I also played a show in Sälen, one of Sweden’s biggest ski resorts two days after Christmas Eve. The band is a Swedish band that we have put together that includes some of Sweden’s biggest artist, for example “Fame”, Micke Syd from “Gyllene Tider”, the rhythm section of “Sven-Ingvar’s” plus another racing friend of mine Jan “Flash’ Nilsson. The show was very well received and we’ll see if we will make any more appearances in the near future. My Indycar-racing future is still unclear. I miss racing a lot and I will try to arrange a test in an Indycar when I get back to “The States” in January. Basically to see if I can sort out the key issues that is important for a come back to this type of racing, because I only want to do it if I feel I can be competitive. Please keep the victims in the terrible disaster in Asia in your thoughts. All best, Kenny Brack kennybrack.com KB |
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