Fittipaldi Reaches Career Finish Line

Champion driver Emerson Fittipaldi said Wednesday that a second brush with paralysis will be his checkered flag.

“It was not a message, it was an order,” Fittipaldi said, looking up to the ceiling. “I have to stop extreme sports.

It’s over.”

The two-time Indy 500 winner and Formula One champion said racing and other extreme sports are not in his future. His racing career didn’t just hit a speed bump this time. It came to a stop light.

“Physically, yes, I could do it,” he said. “But mentally, I wouldn’t be ready.”

Fittipaldi injured his spinal cord Sept. 7 when he crashed an ultralight plane in Brazil. Rescuers found him and his 6-year-old son, Luca, on the wing of the ultralight after the driver waited 11 hours, unable to move. Fittipaldi said his son has been seeing a child psychiatrist.

Fittipaldi broke his neck in an IndyCar race in Michigan last year, requiring sensitive spinal surgery.

At Concord, N.C., Geoff Bodine gave his rejuvenated race team another boost by edging Bobby Labonte to win the pole for the UAW-GM Quality 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“I’ve won a lot of big races and I’ve won a lot of poles, but I’ll tell you, this pole tonight means as much as anything does,” said Bodine, an independent ownerdriver whose cash-strapped team nearly closed its doors this summer.

Spokane’s Chad Little failed to qualify.