Unser Could Become the All-Time Indy Front-Runner Sunday

INDIANAPOLIS — Al Unser, the defending Indianapolis 500 champion, will be starting from the front row Sunday in his 23rd 500, so he could lead the race for at least one lap.

If he does, the veteran driver from Albuquerque, N.M., will have led more laps than any driver in the speedway’s 72-year history. When Unser took the checkered flag on the final lap last year for his fourth 500 victory, he moved into a tie with the late Ralph DePalma, the 1915 winner, with 613 laps at the front of what the Sid Collins called “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

Marion DePalma, 93-year-old widow of the pioneer racing giant, is expected to come from her home in Laguna Hills to witness Unser’s bid.

Two other drivers in Sunday’s race are also among the lap leaders.

A.J. Foyt, the only other four-time winner, has led in 13 races and is next with 555 laps. Mario Andretti, the 1969 champion and many times a contender, has led 460 laps.

Billy Vukovich III will be a rookie starter, but his grandfather, Bill Vukovich, led 485 laps while winning in 1953 and 1954. Vukovich was killed in a three-car crash while leading the 1955 race.

Unser, who will celebrate his 49th birthday on race day, finds today’s high-tech, aerodynamic racing machine a totally different breed from earlier eras, but as a renovator of antique cars, he dreams of racing the Dusenbergs, Maxwells, Millers and Frontenacs of pre-World War II.

“I’d like to go over to the Indy museum and get some of those old cars and get some mechanics and get them into optimum condition, and then get some guys and go out and drive them,” Unser said while mechanics worked on the state-of-the-art Penske-Chevy he will drive Sunday.

“We’d come in and we’d have white knuckles and white faces. Everybody’s knees would be shaking. We wouldn’t be going very fast (compared to today), but it would be nerve-wracking. The Offys (Offenhausers)shook so bad, they would shake the paint off the chassis. It was just as scary back then as it is today.

“The old-timers took the same foolish chances we take today. I don’t mean that we’re daredevils. We’re professionals. When things go wrong out there, it gets all our attention. If we don’t do it right, we won’t be here next week. We’ll be down in the crash house. You have to extend yourself, but be careful.”

Unser qualified at 215.270 m.p.h. to get on the outside of the front row alongside Penske teammates Rick Mears, 219.198, and Danny Sullivan, 216.214.

DePalma, by way of contrast, qualified at 100.75 m.p.h. when he sat on the pole for the 1921 race in a Ballot.

“You can’t compare a car today with cars back then because the cars are just 100 times better,” Unser said. “Everything about them, the tires, the aerodynamics, the engines, everything is better. And even though we’re 100 miles faster, they’re much safer today, too.”

Unser feels today’s speeds are much too high, however, and unnecessarily so.

“I think it’s getting out of hand,” he said. “Cars are safe and very much in control, but we don’t need to go that fast.

“Race fans can’t tell the difference if we’re going 200 or 220. No one knows until the announcer tells them. I don’t have the answer on how to do it, but there’s a definite need for them to be slowed down.”

Unser first came to the speedway in 1965, a vintage rookie year that also included Andretti, Gordon Johncock, Joe Leonard, Jerry Grant and George Snider.

“I remember we used to back off at the No. 1 sign (heading for the first turn), and the old-timers would say, ‘Oh, my gosh, he’ll never get it stopped.’ Back in the ‘50s, they used to start backing off at the start-finish line, then hold their breath hoping they’d get slowed down enough to make it through the corner.

“Now we’re going all the way into the first turn and right on through it flat out. I don’t know which is better, holding your breath at the start-finish line and trying to get it stopped, or holding your breath going through the turn without lifting.”

Unser, whose son, Al Jr., will be starting right behind him in the second row, is the last driver to win back-to-back 500s--in 1970 and 1971.

“Racing is such a fickle thing,” he said. “In 1970 the win was so easy it was funny. I started on the pole and led nearly all the way. It was the easiest race I ever had.

“When I came back the next year I had an obsolete car. The new McLarens were by far the best cars. How I did it I’ll never know. I was just in the right position at the right time. For every one you win, probably there are 10 that you could have won. Just like Mario (Andretti) last year.”

Unser will be the first to admit that he lucked into last year’s win, but as car owner Roger Penske said: “You know when you put Al into a race car that he’ll be there at the finish and he’ll be right around the front.”

Statistics prove his point. In 307 Indy-car races, Unser has won 39 and finished in the top five 138 times, a 45% record.

This will be Unser’s first start this season as his deal with Penske is only for the three 500-mile races, but it’s still better than when he arrived for the race last year.

“I was very fortunate the way things worked out, but it was nothing I could have planned,” Unser said. “I turned down some opportunities to drive cars that I didn’t like, and when Danny (Ongais) hit the wall and got hurt so he couldn’t drive, I got a call from Roger to drive a third car for him.”

The car was in a showroom in Reading, Pa., when the decision was made for Unser to drive. It was made so late that it was impossible to change engines, from a Cosworth-Ford to an Ilmore-Chevy like Mears and Sullivan were using.

“Just getting a chance to drive was a break enough and then things just fell my way on race day,” Unser said. “I had no chance at all to challenge Mario during the race. As far as I was concerned, he was gone. Things happened that shouldn’t have happened. But, like I said, sometimes you win the ones you never expect.”

Andretti led 171 of the first 178 laps before the ignition failed on his Lola-Chevy, and he coasted to a stop. Even then, Unser was more than a lap behind Roberto Guerrero, but fate intervened again when Guerrero’s car stalled in the pits. Before his crew could get it started, Unser took the lead with 18 laps to go.

It was those 18 he led that moved him into a deadlock with DePalma for most laps in front at Indy.

Said Unser: “I’d like to lead some laps, sure, and it’d be nice to get the record, but the laps don’t mean nothing unless you’re leading the last one.”