Pressure driving IndyCar whiz kid Sage Karam toward greatness - SI.com
The rear passenger door opens, and into a cool, drizzly spring morning steps Sage Karam—an aquamarine-eyed, fair-haired 20-year-old race car driver with a swelling reputation for making grand entrances. His splashiest yet came last year at the Indianapolis 500 where he rallied from a third-to-last qualifying position to a ninth-place finish. Before that sudden arrival, he had never raced a big boy car. The one-off performance earned Karam an extended run in the Verizon IndyCar Series this season with Chip Ganassi Racing, one of the league’s storied franchises. Actually, Karam had just moved out of his parents’ house in nearby Nazareth, Pa. (to a downtown Indy condo) for the job. Hence the trip to this North Jersey ranch—the residence of Karam’s chief benefactor, the bedding magnate Michael Fux (as in, rhymes with jukes ). Karam’s old cars live in a barn on the property. On the inside, there’s a regulation-size basketball court with a squadron of supercars parked nose-out along three of its sides, an all-star lineup of Ferraris, Lambourghinis and, behind the far baseline, a Bugatti Veyron—the world’s fastest... The fleet is but a sampling of Fux’s personal collection, which explains why his front gate looks like it could hold back a Moorish invasion. “My babies,” says Karam who at 5' 11" and 158 pounds might’ve. Source: www.si.com
