de Silvestro On Fire Literally & Figuratively

I can trace my sports fandom back to when I was eight years old in 1995 watching the Atlanta Braves win the World Series. In the 16 years since then I’ve seen some truly great things in sports, some of the greatest teams ever, athletes ever, games ever and moments ever. But, last week there was a first for me as a sports fan …

I developed my first crush on an athlete. Now, I don’t mean this to offend as it’s all in good fun and it certainly shouldn’t take away from any of her accomplishments.

My crush is on 22-year old Swiss IndyCar racer Simona de Silvestro who is in her second year in the IRL and just this past weekend qualified for her second Indy 500. This is the second season I’ve watched de Silvestro on the IRL circuit, but what really caught my attention was something that happened last Thursday.

In practice for the Indy 500, de Silvestro had a horrific crash where her car became airborne due to mechanical failure and remained airborne for what in racing seems like an eternity. Her #78 HVM Racing car landed upside down and caught fire with her trapped in it. de Silvestro was taken to a local hospital with burns to both of her hands, including some second-degree and third-degree burns to them. However, on Saturday when it came time to qualify de Silvestro took her completely bandaged hands put them on that steering wheel and went out on the track and qualified her way into the Indy 500.

That proves that she’s a racer and proves that she wants this and won’t let anything get in her way, that’s the attractive thing about her … oh, and yeah it doesn’t hurt that she’s cute either.