If a Driver Is Unsure, He’s Not an Unser

They call him “Little Al.” This is to distinguish him from his father, who is Big Al.

He’s an Unser, which means he probably wasn’t born, he was assembled. If you prick him, he doesn’t bleed, he leaks. Oil.

Unsers, the popular theory goes, come into the world with wheels instead of legs, a carburetor for a heart, a crankcase for a digestive system and a Lola chassis and power plant made in England.

They go right from a crib to a cockpit. Their first bonnet is a bubble helmet.

If it ain’t going 100 m.p.h.--or 200--it ain’t an Unser.

They tell the story of the guy who was passing himself off as an Unser at a Midwest bank once when they saw him stop at a stoplight. They knew he wasn’t an Unser.

The Cowboys are America’s Team. The Unsers are America’s Chauffeurs.

The Unsers have paid their dues. There’s a little piece of them in every race track in America. Uncle Jerry was killed in a race car at Indy in 1959. Uncle Bobby has been peeled off every wall there. He made two whole laps his first race around the Speedway. The next year, he made only one. Bobby always wanted to go faster than the car.

Big Al was more respectful of a race car. He made sure it turned left. His first race, he went, not two, but 196 laps. His second, he went 161; his third, 198.

By his fifth race, he was not only going the full 200, he was winning. He is the last back-to-back Indy winner and only the fourth such in Indy history.

The Unser act is a tough one to follow. Even for another Unser.

Will Little Al ever be the racer his father and uncles--and grandfather--were? It’s a large order. You’re talking seven Indianapolis victories, a runaway family record, and scores of other races, from Pikes Peak hill climbs to stock cars to sprint cars to dirt trackers. Unsers have run under more checkered flags than any family of drivers in history.

Little Al may never add an Unser to the Borg-Warner or PPG trophies, but he has already set a family standard in one Unser category--love of the game.

Little Al, like Big Al, is a master at holding a car’s run together. He races rapidly but not recklessly. In seven Indy races, he has lasted for more than 180 laps five times. He is a cool, heady driver who has been in a car since he was 7 and a race car since puberty.

He was about to put the Unser name on an eighth Indy victory last year in a spectacular wheel-to-wheel slugfest with the canny Brazilian, Emerson Fittipaldi. It was to be the closest finish since Mears-Johncock in 1982--and that was the closest in history, 3/100ths of a second.

The cars were hurtling toward the white flag lap out of Turn 3 when, suddenly, Fittipaldi’s car lifted from the track and spun into Unser’s left rear wheel. Little Al spun out of control, careened across the track and slammed into a wall and out of the race.

It was what happened next that stamped Al as not so little but big in spirit.

Here was a man who had come within a lap of every Unser’s dream and had been shockingly knocked out of it. His rival, Fittipaldi, was proceeding unharmed to the checkered flag.

A quarter of a million fans at the oval and uncounted millions on TV were watching and waiting expectantly for the 27-year-old’s explosion. The way to bet was, he’d throw a tantrum, flip a finger, clench a fist, kick a tire, scream for vengeance, howl at the steward, raise hell.

A safety crewman nearby even scanned the young driver for telltale signs young Unser was non compos mentis, temporarily deranged by injury. Or outrage.

Thirty-two of the 33 drivers might have been convinced by his next actions that he indeed was.

Not-So-Little Al stood by the side of the track and applauded the circling Fittipaldi. He shot him a thumbs-up signal, cheered his flight to Victory Lane.

What kind of demented reaction was this?

“Well,” young Unser explains, “I had about a minute and a half to make up my mind what to do. The safety crewman looked at me. ‘Are you going to flip him off?’ he asks me.

“Right then, it pretty much hit me that everyone expected me to do something like that. Everyone at the race track and the millions looking on expected me to do something negative, to shake my fist or throw a tantrum.

“A lot of things flashed through my mind. I thought of the negative press I’d received at Long Beach the month before (when a shunt with Mario Andretti put that driver out of the race).

“I knew everyone was waiting for an outburst. In that moment, I knew that if I lodged a protest, that race would be run in a courtroom for a year or more.

“I decided to do the opposite of what everyone expected. I decided that what had happened was racing luck. It was no one’s fault but that racing could only be hurt by a big controversy.

“The entire Indy 500 audience, those at the race and the millions watching on TV, expected just that. . . . I just stood there and applauded Emmo for a fine piece of driving. I rooted for him.”

History records that no one was more startled by this than Emmo Fittipaldi when he pulled into Victory Lane, his face tight, expecting, at least, a loud, acrimonious debate. Instead, young Al did everything but ask for his autograph.

It was another Unser contribution to the sport of racing. It wasn’t an eighth victory at Indy--or was it?

The sigh of relief from the officials was almost audible. An Indy 500 was safely in the books. Another major sporting event was kept out of the courts.

An Unser was making Indy history, as usual.

For Not-So-Little Al, the drama moves to Long Beach and next Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix, where he is the two-time defending champion.

A race without an Unser is like a meal without wine. Win, lose or crash, they make their presence felt. For generations.