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closeOlympic dreams gave away to fast cars for Max Angelelli
The Associated Press
Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008
Sports car driving star Max Angelelli likes to find his speed on land these days, but there was a time when he spent most of his days in a swimming pool, nurturing his family's dreams of Olympic gold.
From the time he was 6 years old until a racing career of a completely different kind began to take hold at age 16, Angelelli remembered having to endure "agonizing" and "monotonous" daily workouts in the pool during the week, then constant travel on the weekends from swim meet to swim meet throughout his native Italy.
Angelelli now co-drives the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac Dallara for Wayne Taylor Racing in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, a job he enjoys far more than racing in water.
"I don't think it was my dream as much as it was my family's dream," he said. "I swam for 10 years, every single day. I would practice for hours at a time. I would go racing all around Italy. ... I even had a picture made with Mark Spitz when he was at one of my swimming meets.
"I was just going and going and going. ... I just couldn't do it anymore. I hated it so much. I wasn't winning. Maybe that's why I didn't like it. I was always leading up to the last 25 meters, but then I was done. All the way I was flat out. That was the problem."
That's also why he loves auto racing.
"I still go flat out all the time, but in car racing we have yellow flags, so we can catch our breath every once in a while," Angelelli said. "You don't have those in swimming."
Angelelli and co-driver Michael Valiente will compete in Saturday's Grand-Am race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.