A Third Unser, Al Jr., Hopes to Add His Name to Indy Winner’s List

INDIANAPOLIS — Only 52 drivers have won the Indianapolis 500, but when the Unser clan gets together, the non-winners are in the minority.

Al Unser Sr. owns four Indianapolis 500 wins, including a stirring victory last year, and his older brother, Bobby Unser, has three triumphs at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For Al Unser Jr., the family history at the speedway serves as added inspiration as he prepares for this year’s 500, to be run May 29.

Unser believes he’s making steady progress toward his goal of becoming the third member of the family to win the Indianapolis 500 and his performances the past two years back him up.

He finished fifth in 1986 and fourth last year, and comes into this year’s race more confident than ever. The fuel for the positive outlook comes from three sources: a win at Long Beach in the last Championship Auto Racing Teams race before Indianapolis; improvements made to the 1988 March chassis; and his return to the Rick Galles racing family.

“I think we’re the strongest team,” Unser said recently by telephone when asked to assess this year’s Indy 500 field. “But on the CART series there’s 10 or 15 drivers and teams that can win this race coming up or win any race on the series. I’m feeling really good about our team right now. I think we’re going good and we’re definitely contenders.”

Winning the Long Beach race in his March-Chevrolet broke a winless streak of 16 races for Unser and gave him his fifth career Indy Car victory.

Last year was a frustrating one for Unser, although he has nothing but kind words for the Doug Shierson racing team that he left after 1987 to return to Galles, for whom he raced during his first two years on the CART circuit.

He did finish second twice and came in third in the championship standings, but suffered through his first full season without a victory in four years.

“It (the Long Beach win) just proves what I’ve been thinking all along,” Unser, 26, said. “I thought we were going to have success when I talked to Rick last year and signed with him. A lot of people kind of thought we went the wrong way, but I had a good feeling it was going to be the right way and it turned out I was right.

“The Long Beach win was very, very good for the team and myself. It’s been a bit of a dry spell and the car was definitely on the money and so was the team. We’re going to use this momentum going into Indy. It looks really good.”

Also looking good to Unser is the new March chassis. Last year’s month at Indianapolis was filled with horror stories about the 1987 March as teams tried in vain to make the proper adjustments to their cars. Lola drivers were much more consistent and quicker in 1987, but Unser does not see the same scenario developing this time around.

“The March is a better car than it was last year,” Unser said. “My team did a good job last year, but the Lola was a better car. They (March) have kind of closed the gap a little bit this year. They have gained, they’ve made major changes with the car and I haven’t really noticed any major changes on the Lola like what was done on the March, and I think that’s the reason they did close the gap.”

Changing race teams often leads to a period of adjustment, a time when a driver and team members feel each other out, learning how to operate together. Because Unser was familiar with many members of the Galles team, however, he believes he can shorten that stage of adjustment.

“There’s a real special chemistry that’s starting to (develop) with the race team,” Unser said. “We’re still going through the growing pains and all that and I think we will for a few races yet. We’re learning each other’s ways as we go along. What’s neat is we’re doing it very quickly. We’ve got a great race team here and I really see us winning a lot of races in the future.”