International Race of Champions : Al Unser Holds Off Yarborough, Elliott for Win

Wily old Al Unser, the CART Indy-car champion, held off NASCAR favorites Cale Yarborough and Bill Elliott in a nose-to-tail finish of the International Race of Champions Friday at Daytona International Speedway.

Yarborough and Elliott appeared poised to give Unser the Daytona slingshot treatment on the last lap, but when the time came for their move, nothing happened. The three cars remained as if they were glued together.

“I was just hanging on,” Yarborough said. “I didn’t have enough horsepower to get by, and it didn’t pay to get out of line. The cars were too equal.”

Elliott, who won last year’s Daytona 500 and will be the pole sitter in Sunday’s 500, had the same problem.

“I was running wide open, trying to hold on,” Elliott said. “If I’d have pulled out, I’d have had no chance.”

Unser inherited the lead on the 30th lap of the 40-lap sprint around Daytona’s 2.5-mile, high-banked tri-oval when pole sitter Harry Gant, another NASCAR driver familiar with Daytona’s banking, slowed abruptly due to a faulty gas line.

“If Harry hadn’t held up his hand as quick as he did, there would have been a lot of sheet metal flying,” Unser said. “His quick action kept me from collecting him. I hate to think what would have happened behind me if we’d hit.”

This was Unser’s first race on the big Daytona oval since he nearly cartwheeled into Lake Lloyd during an IROC race in 1978 after an accident involving Gordon Johncock. Last year, however, he won the 24 Hours of Daytona on the road course.

Gant, who won his place on the pole in a drawing, had led the entire race until he slowed coming off the third turn.

“The doggone fuel pump just cut off,” Gant said. “I thought I felt it cough a little coming off Turn 2, then in 3 it just quit and left me sitting there in front of everybody. I was lucky they didn’t run over me.”

An accident on the fourth lap injured Jochen Mass, knocked Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal out of the race, and left NASCAR champion Darrell Waltrip and West Germany’s Hans Stuck a lap behind.

Mass, running down low on the treacherous fourth turn after unsuccessfully trying to make a pass, lost control of his Camaro and began a slow spin in the middle of the pack. Waltrip slowed, forcing Unser Jr. to hit his brakes.

Mass spun down and hit the infield retaining wall. He suffered a broken shoulder and a cut left leg. After treatment at Halifax Hospital, he was released to fly home to West Germany Friday night.

Said Unser Jr.: “Once I touched the brakes I went sideways. I hit the wall pretty hard, and then somebody (Rahal) came and hit me hard.”

Last year, Rahal faced a similar situation when Tom Sneva and A.J. Foyt tangled, and he hit the brakes and spun into the infield. That time, Waltrip did not brake and drove through the accident to win.

“This year, I tried to do what Darrell (Waltrip) did last year and it didn’t work,” Rahal said. “I wound up hitting Junior.

“I don’t think it was a gamble. Really, you have no choice. You can’t see anything because of the blue smoke. You try to make it through the best you can. I thought I made it, then he (Unser Jr.) came back down in front of me. I was gone.”

Nothing worked. Unser Jr. braked and crashed. Rahal didn’t brake and crashed. Stuck spun, too, even though he didn’t brake.

“I spun on my own because when I saw Jochen (Mass) spin, I got off the throttle,” Stuck explained. “I found that if you go off the throttle on that high banking, you spin, too.”

Stuck and Waltrip came in for repairs and dropped a lap back.

Stuck was nearly involved in another crash later when Rick Mears, former Indy 500 winner, brushed the wall coming out of the fourth turn and spun directly in front of him.

A remarkably quick move by Stuck in moving up toward the wall kept him inches away from the sliding Mears, who went down across the track and slammed into the retaining wall.

Unser averaged 181.452 m.p.h. for the 100 miles before a Speed Weeks crowd estimated at 55,000.

The four-race IROC series will resume June 7 at the Mid-Ohio road course, where Rahal--whose home track is Mid-Ohio--will start on the pole. After the first race, all IROC starts are in inverse order of the previous finish.