Another Sea Cruise for Unser : Race: He leads 93 of 95 laps in winning for the fourth time in a row. At one point, he leads by 15.28 seconds.

By SHAV GLICK

April 15, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Al Unser Jr. is becoming as much a part of the Long Beach scene as the Queen Mary.

For a fourth consecutive year, the second generation Indy car driver from Albuquerque, N.M., won the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach that is raced through the seashore streets in front of the Queen Mary.

The 5-foot-10 Unser, who is called Little Al only because his father, a four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, is Big Al, didn’t just win on Sunday--he totally dominated.

Unser led 93 of the 95 laps in his Lola-Chevy. His winning margin over Galles-Kraco teammate Bobby Rahal was as small as 3.89 seconds because a late yellow flag brought him back to the field.

Earlier in the cool, breezy day, Unser’s margin was as much as 15.28 seconds. He got off the starting line second behind pole-sitter Michael Andretti, but he caught and passed Andretti at the end of curving Shoreline Boulevard early in the second lap.

“Michael pulled me off the hairpin (at the start of the three-quarter mile stretch along Shoreline), but I think I surprised him when I pulled up alongside him toward the end,” Unser said. “If you want to pass an Andretti, you have to surprise them, or else they’ll block you out. When he realized what I was up to, he saw it was too late and I got by.”

Unser led all of the remaining 94 laps except for one in mid-race when he pitted for fuel and gave it up momentarily.

“It was a long day,” Unser said of his 95 times around the twisting 11-turn, 1.67-mile temporary street circuit. “It might not have looked like it, but Michael kept us honest and when you have to keep off the walls out here for two hours, it’s hard work.”

Unser won $133,136 for his drive of 1 hour 57 minutes 14 seconds. He averaged 81.195 m.p.h. for the 158.65 miles.

In four years, he has led 241 of 280 laps at Long Beach.

A record crowd of 87,500 might have felt it was watching a follow-the-leader Formula One race had not a series of pit accidents added some spice to the otherwise one-sided affair.

Unser, Michael Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Bobby Rahal, Rick Mears, John Andretti and Eddie Cheever had been racing in a parade for most of 60 laps when John Andretti spun on lap 69 and brought out a full-course yellow caution flag.

Most of the field went into the pits for their final fuel stop and tire change. Fittipaldi was pulling away from his pit when suddenly Michael Andretti, under a full head of steam, ran out of room trying to squeeze between Fittipaldi and the cement retaining wall.

The collision sent Andretti’s Lola-Chevy careening on its side and nearly over the wall. Fittipaldi managed to limp away, trailing a streak of black oil. Before track officials could black flag him off the track, the Brazilian veteran had made the second turn as slippery as ice.

The pace car, driven by three-time Indy 500 champion Johnny Rutherford, was racing to pick up the field when it hit the fluid, sending an embarrassed Rutherford into the tire barriers. Mears also slid into a runoff area, but managed to turn around and get going again.

Fittipaldi was fuming when he reached the pits, accusing Andretti of not attempting to slow down when he (Fittipaldi) had the right of way. Later, after apparently looking at tapes of the accident, he recanted and said in a prepared statement:

“I now realize that Michael did everything he could do to avoid me. There was nothing more he could do. It was just a racing situation that involved both of us. When I saw (the tape of) Michael with all four wheels locked up, I knew I had to change my mind.”

Andretti, who walked away from his badly damaged car without an injury, explained his side:

“I can’t blame Emmo (Fittipaldi) because he’s going to do what his crew signals him to do. I hit him full blast. There was nothing I could do. I nailed him big time and got up in the air. I think it’s the responsibility of those guys not to wave him out when somebody is coming down pit row hard.”

This left only Unser and Rahal on the same lap and set up the second one- two finish of the close friends since they also became teammates last season. It was Rahal’s seventh second place finish in two years, including both races this season.

“Better second than third,” Rahal quipped. “I might have been second, but it was the hardest second I’ve ever had.”

Third, a lap back, was Cheever, the refugee from Formula One who is starting his second season with Indy cars. Mears, despite his off-track excursion involving the pace car, finished fourth--his best ever at Long Beach.

Two laps back, in fifth, was Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk, just ahead of rookie Ted Prappas of Los Angeles, whose Judd-powered Lola was the first non-Chevrolet powered car to finish.

“The goal was to finish,” Prappas said. “I knew when Michael and Emmo went out that that meant we had gained a couple of spots. With a couple of laps to go I was running on adrenaline. All of the other series I’ve run have been short races, so this was the longest I’ve ever been in a car.”

Unser’s fourth consecutive victory tied him with Rahal for the most successive checkered flags at the same track since CART was established in 1978. Rahal won four in a row at Laguna Seca from 1984 to 1987. A.J. Foyt won five in a row at Trenton when races were sanctioned by the United States Auto Club.

The three-day attendance, announced as 204,000 by promoter Chris Pook, was also a record for the 17-year-old Long Beach Grand Prix. The old record was 194,000 set last year.