Al Unser Sr: the shy four-time Indy 500 winner

It is poignant and apt that one who treats the Indy 500 with such reverence should go on to become one of the event’s true legends. First, however, he had to swallow the fact that nowhere is the ‘winning is everything’ adage more true than Indy.

“In ’67, I finished second in Al Retzloff’s car, behind Foyt. Yet the next day someone asked me where I had finished. I was amazed! That taught me there’s only one place – and that’s number one.”

And that’s precisely where Al’s brother Bobby found himself; having won the 1968 Indy 500 on his way to the USAC crown. Five years Al’s senior, Bobby had the gift of the gab to match his raw talent, and his wildness captured the bigger headlines. Eventually, however, quiet Al would out-stat big brother in all Indy departments bar pole positions.

Retzloff quit the ChampCar scene in 1968, so Al, together with George Bignotti – one of US motorsport’s greatest crew chiefs – joined forces with Pamelli Jones and Vel Miletich who bought out Retzloffs assets. It proved a productive relationship. By ’70, the car had been reworked by ace aerodynamicist Joe Fukashima and was now called a Colt. Sponsorship from Topper Toys, who were attempting to steal a marketing march on Mattel’s Hot Wheels series, rendered the Colt-Ford the ‘Johnny Lightning Special’.

No-one else was in the running that year at Indy, and Unser led 190 of the 200 laps.

“You never know you will win Indy,” he says. “There isn’t a driver who can ever say that. But even before practice started we knew that, if we did everything right, we had a very good chance of running up at the front. But we did not know we could lead the amount of laps we did.”

In retrospect, it is less astonishing. Indy turned out to be the second of 10 wins for the Johnny Lightning car that season. Al captured the title with one of the more dominant ChampCar seasons. Like Mark Donohue in a Porsche 917/30, or Niki Lauda in a Ferrari 312T, man and machine had formed a perfect circle which no-one could break. At last Al was receiving proper recognition; if he was destined to remain in Bobby’s shadow for much of his ChampCar career, he at least was now much more than ‘the other Unser’.

This was ensured in 1971, when he scored his back-to-back Indy win (the last time this was done until Helio Castroneves this year).

“McLaren should’ve beaten us,” says Unser. “They had a 10-times better car, because their interpretation of the rules produced a huge rear wing and lots of downforce.”

Qualifying revealed all: Peter Revson’s works McLaren took pole at 178.69mph, Donohue’s Penske-run machine was second; Unser lined up fifth, unable to break the 175 barrier. On race day, Donohue pulled away from everyone until quarter-distance, when his transmission failed. And that should have left Revson with an easy win. Instead, he didn’t even lead a lap.

“We led over half the race that year,” Unser chuckles. “Revson and the McLaren team just didn’t know what they were doing. They lost that race on sheer inexperience. It was a more satisfying win than the year before, because in ’70 we knew we could do it, which created pressure, but a different sort. In ’71, we knew we’d have to work incredibly hard and make everything count for us. That was a hard, hard day with the right result.”

Hard, hard days with little to show for them were the norm for Al at Indy for the next few years. “Maurice Phillippe joined Vel and Pamelli, and that’s when the nightmare started, when that ‘creation’ happened. That ‘dihedral wing’ car [two 45-degree wings mounted halfway between the rear axle and cockpit] wouldn’t work. I finished second in 1972, but if it had been the car it should have been, I might have given Donohue a decent run. There was Joe Leonard, Mario and myself working for Parnelli, so it was being called ‘The Super Team’ and so on. Well let me tell you, there was nothing super about it”

For 1974 and ’75, the team used Eagles, but that had its drawbacks, too: “Dan Gurney and my brother Bobby made sure that they didn’t sell the exact perfect product to the competition, especially the sort of competition that we were. So it took us a while to figure that out.”

Between 1972 and ’76, Al Unser led just 35 of Indy’s 1200 laps. Even so, his decision to leave Parnelli’s at the end of ’77 seemed odd. Phillippe had been replaced by John Barnard and the VPJ was coming good with a win at Ontario. Unser explains: “Vel and Pamelli started doing things I didn’t like, so I quit. Parnelli and I are still good friends, and he was a great car owner, but at the time, I was tired of it. I had to move.”

If it seemed a curious decision at the time, it seemed the height of wisdom the following May. Now at Jim Hall’s Chaparral team, Al was at his finest at Indy, despite a slight pitlane error when he bent a front wing against a tyre on his final stop: “Actually, I didn’t know I’d hit it till later; it didn’t affect the handling at all! Sometimes, when it’s your day, it’s your day. Earlier in the race, I don’t know whether I gained the speed or my rivals lost it, but all those cars just backed up to me.”

It was the first of three superspeedway wins for Unser that year, giving him the Triple Crown of 500-milers: Indy, Michigan and Pocono. Elsewhere, however, the car was very disappointing. The new Chaparral 2K seemed set to change that in 1979, and Unser caned everyone at Indy until an oil leak caused the transmission to seize. Throughout the year there were signs of huge potential, but it wasn’t until the season finale at Phoenix that the 2K got its first victory.

And once again, Unser departed, leaving his hard work to benefit others. In 1980, his replacement, Johnny Rutherford, won Indy and the CART title. Al, meanwhile, endured the first of three fruitless years with the new Longhorn team, helping its owner, Texan oilman Bobby Hillin, chase his brave dream of ChampCar success. Once this project folded at the end of ’82, Unser departed for Penske.

“We started off good,” is Al’s dismissal of 1983, the season in which his wisdom and consistency gave Penske its fourth ChampCar title in five years. He describes ’84 as “one of the worst years of my career. Every time I got in the car, it broke. I don’t know whether it was Penske’s decision, or a sponsor who told him, ‘You gotta make changes’, but that’s how I came to be driving the third car in ’85.”

Except that’s not how things transpired. Instead of being back-up man to successful Penske incumbent Mears and the new boy, Danny Sullivan, Unser became front-line material once more. Mears’ terrible leg injuries incurred at Sanair meant he would have to forego road courses in ’85. Whatever Roger’s plans had been, therefore, he now needed Unser just as much as vice versa.

Sullivan stole Unser’s thunder at Indy with a dramatic win, and was the better qualifier throughout the year. But in the races, Al was consistent and quick – and pipped his son Al Jnr to the CART title.

With Mears back to full strength in ’86, Al thereafter concentrated mainly on Indy. After his 1987 victory there, he put a Penske on the front row for the next two years, coaxed a Lola-Buick to finish third in ’92, and even led in 1993. He now headed the table for most laps led at Indy (644), and lay second only to Foyt in the number of 500s led (11). And there was the matter of four wins, a record shared with Foyt and Mears.

But the decision to retire, when it came, was swift: “I had been practising a Lola for the 500 in ’94, but I found myself standing on the pitwall watching my kid qualify and suddenly realised I was too interested in how he was doing. People who lack the ability to give 100 per cent don’t win. So I quit.”

It was a low-key departure, as we should have expected. Commercial demands multiplied during his career, yet he never courted publicity: “Different people act according to their different personalities, and mine wasn’t to go and sell myself. Mine was to perform.”

And never better than at Indy. Each of his wins there mean different things. Of course, any Indy win is special, but May 24, 1987, when the most modest, unassuming guy in the place got the big Hollywood ending, was a Brickyard classic. In more ways than one, it was Al Unser’s ultimate victory.