Analyzing Alex ; In the most important way, Zanardi has it right.(driver Alex Zanardi)

We could write off Alex Zanardi or, God forbid, cast him in the role of a real-life Joe Tanto. If you haven't seen Driven, don't hurry. If you have, you know that Tanto is Sylvester Stallone's character: a former champion who threw his career away in some unspecified fashion, called back to the wars to guide a young, less-polished teammate, with no real expectation of winning again himself.

If we relegate Zanardi to mentor status, then we must give him credit. Tony Kanaan, his 26-year-old teammate at Mo Nunn Racing, beat Zanardi again at Twin Ring Motegi, and Kanaan has already accumulated four times as many points. Or we could take Zanardi at his word when he says he's as good as ever, or listen to those who insist that at any moment the dam will break and the old Zanardi will flood through, submerging his competitors in their own inadequacy.

Either way, Zanardi's CART comeback isn't off to a flying start. There is reason to think he isn't as committed as he once was, or as confident. There are also reasons to blame circumstances beyond his control. Clearly, Alessandro Zanardi is not now the racer he was during those three magic years at Target/ Chip Ganassi Racing (1996-98). The question is whether he will be again.

Zanardi sits in a portable office across from the garages at Motegi, polishing his helmet and griping about the visors. Someone sent over a batch that doesn't fit correctly; he must drill new holes in the plastic to match the bosses on his helmet. The visor snafu makes an appropriate metaphor for his 2001 season.

He works meticulously, wiping flecks of wax from the rubber edging with masking tape, finishing with extra buffs of the pineapple image painted on back. ``The pineapple has been my lucky charm, a nickname Morris [Nunn] gave me,'' Zanardi says. ``He used to call me Pineapple as a way to say, I don't know, someone purposely acting a little stupid. So one day to do something funny I painted a pineapple on my helmet, and I went out and won that race, my first in CART, at Portland in 1996. Everyone said, `Well, you'd better leave it on.'''

From that day the Pineapple spun his magic. He came from Italy, largely unknown in the States, and won in his ninth start. Yet it was Northern California's Laguna Seca that marked Zanardi indelibly on the racing map. A last-lap, through-the-dirt move on Bryan Herta coming out of the Corkscrew is still known as The Pass, and its aftereffects lingered with Herta for years.

By the end of his 1996 rookie year Zanardi had won three races. Two straight championships followed, powered by the charm and humor that made it all the more entertaining. Zanardi finished his first CART stint with a higher winning percentage (0.294) than the series' next new sensation, a young Colombian who came to be known as The Great Juan. Indeed, Zanardi's win and podium hit rate were higher than any CART driver before or since. Where Juan Montoya won his championship by the skin of his teeth, Zanardi cruised, particularly in 1998. He had it settled by August, and finished the season with the highest point total ever.