INDIANAPOLIS 500 / UPDATE : Father Passes Teaching Role to Son, Saying His Time in Classroom Is Done

There is Big Al, Little Al and now Littlest Al.

While his father was qualifying Saturday and his grandfather Sunday for the Indianapolis 500, Al Unser III, 10, was telling friends about being in Amarillo, Tex., racing a kart.

“He doesn’t know how to pass, but he does know how to stand on the gas,” Al Unser Jr. said.

When Junior asked his father to help guide his grandson, Al Unser told him: “I’ve gone through that once, and I’m not going to do it again.”

Unser Jr. and his wife, Shelly, got a quick taste of what it’s like to have an offspring in racing recently in Albuquerque.

“At the end of the day, he smacked the hay bales and got a bloody nose,” Al Jr. said. “It scared the hell out of me. Shelly wanted him to race until she saw that.”

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What do drivers know? Thirty-nine drivers were polled to predict the pole speed and the lowest estimate was Scott Pruett’s 224.316 m.p.h. They predictions ranged all the way to Jeff Andretti’s 230.242.

Arie Luyendyk’s winning speed was 223.967.

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A European writer here to chronicle the deeds of Nigel Mansell said he had a question about the pole.

“What do they do with it the rest of the year?” he asked. “If Arie Luyendyk won it, does that mean he gets to keep it?”

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Stefan Johansson, a native of Sweden, had never held a softball bat until he participated in a pickup game with fellow drivers.

When he was shown how to hold it, he asked, “It’s like hockey?”

Then he smashed a couple of line drives for base hits.

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Chip Hanauer, the national unlimited hydroplane champion who aspires to a career in auto racing, was a visitor during the weekend. Hanauer, who drove in the 24 Hours of Daytona, will skip the Indy 500 because the hydroplane season will open that day in Dallas.