Look What Just Fell Into Big Al’s Lap

I never thought I’d be bored to death by the Indianapolis 500. Scared to death, perhaps.

But, for about 130 laps Sunday, it was about as exciting as watching a guy park cars in Pacoima.

It wasn’t a race, it was a parade. All it needed was a calliope. Mario Andretti was the grand marshal and he was running so far in front of everybody, it was hard not to change channels. Nothing is as boring as an Indy race with one guy a lap in the lead.

But, Indianapolis is a sleeping monster. Danger is never more than one left turn away. It is one big dead man’s curve.

It turned into its horrible self on Lap 133 Sunday. First of all, a wheel came flying off car No. 16 driven by Tony Bettenhausen Jr., whose father died on this race track in 1961.

Since this wheel came off between Turns 3 and 4 on the track, Bettenhausen was able to steer his three-wheeled vehicle into the pits for a new fourth to continue the race.

The spectator the wheel hit was not so fortunate. He died an hour later at the hospital.

Bettenhausen finished ninth. But, Lyle Kurtenbach became the 10th spectator killed at the Speedway, the third by a flying wheel and the first to lose his life that way since a member of the crowd in the infield was decapitated by one in 1938.

The irony is, that runaway wheel also helped decide the race. On its trajectory into the stands it also hit the front end of a car driven by Roberto Guerrero ripping off part of the front end and forcing him to pit for repairs.

At the time, Guerrero was slashing along a lap behind the seemingly uncatchable Mario Andretti.

Nobody’s uncatchable at Indy. This race is 500 miles of malice. It caught Mario Andretti with only 23 laps to go. It always catches Mario Andretti. He’s the Sam Snead of the Speedway. He’s looking for his second win here. He should be looking for his 10th.

A faulty line began spewing fuel at a flood rate into his engine just as he was beginning to compose his victory speech.

Guerrero, the handsome young Colombian, inherited the race as Mario crept into the pits to get a different kind of valedictory speech ready.

Guerrero, figuring the parade was now his, swept into the pits for a final fuel stop at Lap 182. He was now the boss of the race. He would load up and coast into Victory Lane.

The clutch stalled the car in the pits. Twice. Once on its way back out to the track.

Now, when you and I have an engine quit, we push a button or twist a key and it fires back up. At Indy, they have to wheel it back to the pits and crank it.

Out on the track, Al Unser the Elder, flashed into the lead. He suddenly had a lap on the stalled leader.

A yellow light, the 10th of the race, came on then, with eight laps to go, but, though the cars bunched up, there were, by the time the green came on again, only four laps left for Guerrero to pass six cars and overtake Unser. Four laps aren’t enough to catch Al Unser.

Al Unser has now won just as many Indys as A.J. Foyt and, if you don’t think that’s an upset, you don’t know auto racing.

Al Unser has always been known as the slower, dependable one of the famous Unser family. One brother was killed on this race track in 1959 and brother, Bobby, was always the flamboyant, magazine-cover member of the flying Unsers. Bobby was either on a wall or in Victory Lane.

Al was a guy for whom “Aw, shucks” was the most reckless kind of profanity. If Al Unser Sr. were a breakfast, he’d be corn flakes. If he were a drink, he’d be milk. He’s white bread, vanilla ice cream. He’s a G movie, a country song, mashed potatoes. He’s always been the Other Unser, Good Old Al. In a movie, he’d play Bobby’s best friend.

He was so overlooked, he’s probably the only three-time winner who ever showed up at the Speedway in his prime without a ride as he did this month. He had won this race three times, back-to-back once and had finished second twice and third once.

He must have thought he also had to have a nose that lights up because he only got into a car at the last minute because Danny Ongais had his annual crash.

They put him in the kind of car where you’d kick the tires and look for bloodstains if you found it on a lot. It was a used car, all right. Rick Mears drove it in last year’s race and it has since been hauled around the country for exhibitions at shopping centers as an Indy relic only slightly less prehistoric than Ray Harroun’s Wasp or the 1927 Duesenberg. In other words, it was out of warranty.

So, everyone thought, was Al Unser. He’ll be 48 in five days but no one is any better at holding a race car together through 500 miles than Al Unser. Like the car, he’s a survivor.

There were 11 cars running when the Indy 500 ended Sunday. As usual, Al Unser’s was one of them. Don’t look for him on “The Tonight Show” or even as the butt of David Letterman jokes. Al probably doesn’t even watch things like that.

He is obviously the best in the business at what he does--which is bring a car back in one piece, fast and rich. Al Unser is the kind of guy who could make a mule a threat in a race if it is long enough. He’s as matter-of-fact as a telephone directory but if you got a problem car in a big race, Al Unser will probably straighten it out for you as well as anybody.

Winning your fourth Indy is a twice-in-a-lifetime feat. It’s too bad a man had to die watching it. What is really melancholy is the incident will only be remembered by the notation on the track side race day bulletin which noted only under reasons for the yellow flag No. 7 “Loose wheel in stands.” That is not much of an epitaph but that, too, is Indy.