and 12 rebounds in the same game 54 times

Twenty-four-year-old Jacques Villeneuve drives out of the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the world at his feet. It is the Monday after the day before, a day that forever changed the life of the young Canadian. That day Villeneuve, fittingly driving the number 27 that become so synonymous with his father Gilles at Ferrari, comes from two laps down to win the 1995 Indianapolis 500. He had spent the day smiling and posing for hundreds of photographs that are beamed all across the world. By the end of the year he has a multi-year contract in his pocket at the best team in Formula One, Williams-Renault. Within two years Villeneuve is World Champion and is a star everywhere he goes. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis 500 continues on without him. As Villeneuve departed for Europe, IndyCar split in two and has never fully recovered from the bitter divorce. The Indy 500s list of drivers in the late 90s lacked real star power and it lost a grip on being the biggest race in the world. Slowly the giant teams like Penske, Ganassi and Andretti returned and with them came world class, elite drivers. For some ten years now, the Indy 500 is back to what it once was, testing some of the greatest single-seater drivers the world has to offer. It is the second Sunday in May and Jacques Villeneuve, now 43, drives back inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Dressed in a yellow race suit with Dollar General written all over it he looks nothing like what many would expect a former F1 World Champion to look. He doesnt have the amount of hair he once had but he is back at Indy as a driver, the first time in 19 years. He stops to sign autographs and pose for photographs as he makes that famous walk, paved by greatness, that the likes of A.J. Foyt, Jim Clark, Rick Mears and other stars have taken, alongside Gasoline Alley to the pit lane. The diehard fans stare and flock towards him but he is far from the main attraction at the Speedway. Villeneuve, not a regular on the IndyCar circuit, does remarkably well with attention but here he is just another driver, one that doesnt travel in packs with fellow drivers. He is a man from past glories back to recreate new memories of his own. "I hardly know anyone to be honest. I know (Takuma) Sato, but I never raced against him and I have never raced against anyone who is a regular in this series. That is weird because I dont know what to expect, I dont know how they race. Which one is clean? Dirty? Crazy? So its definitely a bit strange, yes." The answer is typical Jacques. He talks of not knowing anyone but immediately he means as drivers, not as men. Our conversation immediately turns to scenarios that can take place on the track. Villeneuve doesnt talk in clichés and for someone who has done as much media as he has in his life, he remains a refreshingly deep-thinker who can take you on the same journey as his mind. We talk about this upcoming Sunday and the Indy 500, and the point when he will be travelling in excess of 230 miles per hour with cars all around him. His eyes squint as he dictates word-for-word his precise thoughts as he gets set to compete in what he describes as the biggest race in the world. "The complexity of this race now is running in traffic. The cars have two hundred horsepower less than 19 years ago and much more grip and to be able to stay super close to the cars, while everyone is running flat out, the key is to stay close to someone else, (ready for) when he has to lift, back out a little bit because of the traffic in front of him, then you steal his momentum. "Thats really tough, as you get in the turbulent air behind someone, your whole car is shaking and thats when the car starts sliding and you can lose the front end or the rear end a little bit and, at that point, do you have the guts to keep your foot down or not and is your car working in that situation?" This is a world he has little control in, a frightening thought for even the greatest of race drivers. Villeneuve, who will start, fittingly, in the 27th spot for Sundays race, continues: "I will be surrounded by guys who respect the danger and others who think its a video game and, at those speeds, its risky and thats what I still dont know, who to trust and who not to trust out there. With more grip and less horsepower, the cars are very forgiving. I have got sideways a few times already this month and if I did that 19 years ago I would have been in the wall. "I think they give a false sense of security for some of the drivers and thats why you see kids coming in and, within three laps, they are flat out because I dont think they respect how dangerous it is. Once you get caught out, then you start respecting it and at Indianapolis there are two kinds of drivers, the ones who have hit the wall and the ones who havent hit the wall." It is clear Villeneuve is almost as concerned about those who havent hit the wall than hitting the wall himself. "This is not a track where you want to make a mistake. The speeds we go is exciting, it is unparalleled. It is a long race and my approach (in the past) was to mind your own business and it will come to you. You have to know when to take a risk and when not to. Normally in the first half, the idiots will crash themselves out so if you can stay clean to 100 laps then that can be useful!" There arent too many drivers in IndyCar who will refer to some of the colleagues as idiots but this is what comes with the honest, direct Villeneuve who survived the world of Formula One without turning into a robot, something very few have done in recent years. He admits he still watches Formula One but not the same way he once did: "I dont like or understand the reason behind the new rules but we have had some amazing races this year. Why? Only because the teammates have been allowed to fight. When you had Prost and Senna (at McLaren in the late 80s) they would lap the field but everyone was happy so we have a bit of that now with Lewis (Hamilton) and Nico (Rosberg). "The rules themselves, though, are not F1. The sport should be out of this world, not reality. You should look at it and say thats crazy how do these guys manage to drive these kinds of cars at those speeds. In the original turbo engine era they would do qualifying and then throw the engine in the garbage. Thats F1. It should be so extreme that when you are at home, and you are not a racer, you know thats another world. Now you are at home and think I could do that. There is nothing special about it anymore." The man who won 11 Grand Prix races has never been one to focus too much on the past but it is clear he knows those eras were far superior to modern day F1. He smiles when asked about the 1997 season but moves off from it as quickly as it comes up. "It was fun but I dont dwell on the past, I never have and thats why I want my kids to see me drive. I dont want to be for my kids, the guy that used to race that they can see in books." Those books tell a remarkable tale of one of the finest Canadians to ever compete in any sport. On Sunday at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing another chapter is to be written. Julie Ertz Jersey . According to the Red Wings Twitter feed, Zetterberg plans to practice with the team on Thursday and is aiming for a second round comeback. Lynn Williams Jersey . The club announced Friday that Mauro Biello will be kept on as an assistant to coach Jesse Marsch when the Impact join the MLS in 2012. http://www.socceruswntshop.com/mallory- ... a-jersey/.? It was his second straight start for the Jets; he suffered a 1-0 loss against Minnesota Monday. So this season Hutchinson has now won games in the ECHL, AHL and NHL. He was perfect three- for-three in the shootout to nail down the win. Carli Lloyd Jersey . The English Football Association had charged the German right back with violent conduct after retrospectively reviewing video evidence of an incident that was missed by match officials at Craven Cottage on Saturday. Sam Mewis Jersey . In this space, I will be writing new and unique pieces about the team that you wont be able to find anywhere else. So naturally, in an attempt to come up with a fresh topic about the Ottawa Senators, I am going to start with a piece about their goaltending.DENVER -- An elbow to the chin staggered Timofey Mozgov for only a moment. Shaking off the blow, the 7-foot-1 centre went on to match his career high with 23 points, and the Denver Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Lakers 111-99 on Wednesday night to win consecutive games for the first time this season. "Its OK. Its basketball. You just have to keep playing, if you can," said Mozgov, who fell to the floor but quickly scrambled to his feet after taking an inadvertent elbow from Jordan Hill when the Lakers forward went in for a jump hook during the third quarter. "He was like a good, old Russian boxer, didnt give in," said teammate Nate Robinson. "I just love the way he plays, he competes. He doesnt complain, just plays hard." Mozgov also had nine rebounds and four blocked shots to help first-year Nuggets coach Brian Shaw, who was part of five championship teams with the Lakers as a player and assistant coach, beat Los Angeles in his first matchup against his former team. "We played big and pretty much just dominated inside and kept the pressure on them by running the floor," Shaw said. Kenneth Faried joined Mozgov in mixing it up in the paint, scoring 21 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. "Theyre good players," Hill said. "It was their night. Defensively, we didnt help each other the way were supposed to and it cost us." Ty Lawson added 19 for the Nuggets, who won their fourth straight against the Lakers, their longest winning streak against Los Angeles since 1994. "They just came at us," Lakers coach Mike DAntoni said. "We didnt react very well to their speed and athleticism. That was a recurring theme throughout the game, their athleticism. They just beat us to the ball. Their foot speed was more than ours most of the time." Pau Gasol led the Lakers with 25 points. Both teams have been impacted by injuries, though the Nuggets were bolstered by the return of forward Wilson Chandler, who saw his first action of the season after missing the first six games with a strained left hamstring.dddddddddddd Chandler scored 12 points, making a pair of key 3-pointers in the fourth quarter. The Lakers are still without Kobe Bryant, who continues to recover from surgery last spring to repair to a torn Achilles tendon, and Steve Nash remains sidelined by a nerve problem in his back. Nuggets centre JaVale McGee is out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his left leg and Danilo Gallinari is recovering from reconstructive knee surgery stemming from an injury late last season. Mozgov jammed home a dunk to put the Nuggets up by 10 with 36 seconds left in the third quarter, but the Lakers scored six straight points to close the period, starting with a 3-pointer by Nick Young to pull to 83-79 going into the fourth. The Nuggets again pulled away, scoring 10 of the first 13 points starting the final period, including a layup by Robinson off a stolen inbounds pass, putting Denver in front 93-82. After a basket by Gasol and a free throw by Hill helped the Lakers narrow the gap to 93-87, the Nuggets responded with a 10-0 run that included two 3-pointers by Chandler and a pair of free throws by Mozgov for a 16-point cushion with about 5 minutes remaining. It was more than the Lakers could overcome. The Lakers pulled to 60-54 at halftime after trailing by as many as 13 points earlier. Chandler also hit a couple of 3-pointers in the last 4 minutes of the second quarter to help offset a 7-0 run that the Lakers used to get close. NOTES: The 60 first-half points and the final points total both represented season highs for the Nuggets. ... Mozgov has come off the bench to score in double figures in five of the first seven games. ... The Lakers lost the back end of a back-to-back after beating New Orleans the night before. ... Gasol has had 25 points and 12 rebounds in the same game 54 times in his career. ... Mozgov also had 23 points on Jan. 30, 2011 against Detroit while with the New York Knicks. Cheap Canadiens Jerseys Cheap Predators Jerseys Cheap Devils Jerseys Cheap Islanders Jerseys Cheap Rangers Jerseys Cheap Senators Jerseys Cheap Flyers Jerseys Cheap Penguins Jerseys Cheap Sharks Jerseys Cheap Blues Jerseys Cheap Lightning Jerseys Cheap Maple Leafs Jerseys Cheap Canucks Jerseys Cheap Golden Knights Jerseys Cheap Capitals Jerseys Cheap Winnipeg Jets Jerseys ' ' '