Little Al Unser Sits Tall in an Indy Car : Indianapolis 500: He carries on heritage of racing excellence passed from his father, Al Unser, and uncle, Bobby Unser.

There is nothing little about Little Al Unser anymore.

Gone are the days when a pint-sized, teen-age Al Unser Jr. had to sit on telephone books and pillows to see over the hood of his World of Outlaws sprint car.

Today he is 5 feet 10, as sinewy as a New Mexico cowpoke and just as tough.

Gone, too, are the days when he was a tag-along with his father, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser, making history as the first family to have father and son in the same Indy car race.

But Al Unser Jr. will always be Little Al.

“I hope I’ll be Little Al as long as I live,” he said Monday as drivers and crews took a day off from preparing for Sunday’s 74th annual Indianapolis 500. “It means I’ll always be remembered with my dad, and it means I’m young, and I hope to stay young as long as I live.”

Today Unser is a force in Indy car racing, one of the favorites for this year’s 500, and the PPG Cup points leader this season after finishing third at Phoenix and winning at Long Beach.

He has won 10 Indy car races, more than $4 million in prize money, two International Race of Champions titles, two races in sports cars in the 24 Hours of Daytona and finished second twice in the PPG Indy car standings. But he is best remembered for the race he didn’t win--last year’s Indianapolis 500.

He was less than three miles from victory last May 28 as he headed into the third turn of the next to-last lap when a bump from Emerson Fittipaldi sent him spinning into the wall and out of the race. Fittipaldi maintained control and took the checkered flag.

Unser climbed out of his car, walked back to the track and, as Fittipaldi went by on the final lap, clapped his hands and gave a thumbs up signal. Some thought is was a derisive salute to the man who had deprived him of victory, but Unser was sincere in his applause.

“I still stand by what I said after the race,” Unser insisted. “It was a racing incident and things like that happen. I know in my heart Emerson would never do nothing like that intentionally.

“He was out to win the race, and I was out to win the race, and these things happen sometimes, especially when you’re racing wheel to wheel like we were. It was two guys racing for a spot where there was room for only one car. I wasn’t going to back off and neither was he.

“So, I stand behind giving him thumbs up and clapping. He deserved it. He drove one hell of a race, and all of Patrick Racing deserved it.”

In the year since, Unser has watched the tapes of the incident dozens of times. He has been asked by nearly everyone he has come in contact with to talk about the disappointment and what it has meant to him mentally.

“I’ve seen it too many times. I kept looking because I thought that maybe one of those times I was going to make it through, but I’ve never made it yet.”

Surprisingly, though, Unser says he gained confidence from what seemed a spirit-crusher.

“I proved to myself that I could win Indy,” Unser said. “Now I know I can win it. I’d been here seven times, and I’ve heard people saying, ‘It’s just a matter of time before he wins, he’s a shoo-in,’ but I really didn’t know if I could win it. Now I know.

“Last year, leading Indy with only two laps to go, the race was mine. I guess that’s why I didn’t feel angry the next day, because I finally knew I could do it.”

The next day, a rainy Monday, Unser took a rental car and drove around the 2 1/2-mile track.

“I wanted to take a look at Turn 3 because the last time I was there I left the track in an ambulance. It was the first time I ever hit a fence at Indy, and it just felt good to be there the next day. And I wanted to see if I could get through (the turn) in a rental car.”

Unser’s unusual display of sportsmanship did not go unnoted. He and his wife, Shelley, traveled to England in January to receive a special award as sportsman of the year from Autosport, the British motor racing journal.

There is a bit of pixie in him, too. Once, it almost got him in trouble.

Unser had been the butt of his crew’s jokes and on April Fools’ Day in Long Beach he decided it was time to get even. Shelley suggested he call in on the pace lap and say the engine quit.

“I can’t do that,” he told her, but the idea stuck.

“On the first parade lap, I called in all out of breath and said, ‘Oh, no, I don’t have any oil pressure.’ As soon as I did it, I wondered what I’d done. Shelley told me later that Rick (Galles, the car owner) broke his radio and threw his clipboard.

“They were all leaning over the wall because I didn’t say another word. When I came down in front of the pits, I yelled, ‘April Fool!’ When the race was over . . . it was big time. Galles cornered me and said, ‘Don’t ever do that to me again.’

“Later, I told my dad and he said, ‘You did what? I’d have fired you on the spot.’

“ ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘it was April Fools’.’ I don’t think I convinced them.”

This will be Unser’s eighth Indy 500, yet only three drivers in the field are younger. He turned 28 on April 19. Michael and John Andretti are 27, and Billy Vukovich III is 26.

Don’t let his age confuse you, though. When he was only 16 he took his phone books and pillows and raced sprint cars professionally for three years.

“As far back as I can remember, long before I went sprint car racing, my objective in life was to be a race driver,” he said. “I think maybe it started when I watched my first Indy 500 on closed-circuit television. I was 8 and I remember it was a big screen and I had a front-row seat to watch my dad. When he won the race, that car was bigger than life.

“From that day on, I couldn’t understand why I had to go to school when I knew I was going to drive a race car. I mean, how was Napoleon going to help me get around a race track any faster?

“It was about that time I began to race karts and start to get the feel of what it was like to be a race driver working with my dad. It was strange driving for him, like a Little Leaguer, but we work so well together it really helped me be ready when other opportunities came up.

“I’ve always been able to keep in my head what my dad or Uncle Bobby tells me when I’m out there racing, and I think that goes back to racing karts when I was 9 or 10.”

When Unser talks about his heritage, “my dad and Uncle Bobby” seem to be a single person.

Between them they won seven Indy 500s, five national championships, 74 Indy car races and untold numbers of runs up Pikes Peak. They also mourned the loss of another brother, Jerry, who was killed at Indy three years before Al Unser Jr. was born.

Another Unser who was influential in his upbringing was his cousin, Bobby Jr.

“People are always telling me how competitive I am, and I think that goes back to growing up with Bobby Jr. I never had a brother and he was like my big brother. When he started racing karts before I did, it got me hooked. Before I knew it, the most important thing was smoking my cousin off when we were warming up because we raced in different classes. That became an obsession, and I still get the same feeling when I’m racing today.”

Before he was 20, Unser teamed with Galles, an Albuquerque auto dealer, to win the Sports Car Club of America’s Super Vee championship in 1981 and the Can-Am title in 1982.

In August, 1982, Little Al made his Indy car debut in a road race at Riverside International Raceway. He finished fifth.

“Next to my dad and Uncle Bobby, the drivers I most admired while I was growing up were A.J. Foyt and Gordon Johncock,” he said. “In that race at Riverside, I lapped A.J. and I lapped Gordon and I passed my dad. It was like I lost something--but at the same time, I became one of them.”

He won his first Indy car race in 1984, on Father’s Day, in Portland.

“I can’t imagine a race driver father getting a better Father’s Day present than that,” Al Unser Sr. said at the time.

The following year, the two Unsers, father and son, finished one point apart for the PPG Cup national championship. Father beat son by passing Roberto Moreno with four laps remaining in the final race at Miami to finish fourth. Little Al was third, one point shy of becoming the youngest champion in history.

He was driving for Doug Shierson at the time, but after the 1986 season he returned to Galles, with whom he had been associated in his formative years.

Since rejoining his New Mexico neighbor, Unser has won six races, including the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach three years in a row.

The immediate goal is the Indianapolis 500.

Unser qualified a disappointing seventh last Saturday after dominating practice all month in a 1990 Chevrolet-powered Lola. His qualifying speed of 220.920 m.p.h. was far off the unofficial record of 228.502 he had run a week earlier.

“The numbers weren’t good (in qualifying), but we’re happy with the car and we’re ready to go racing,” Unser said. “After we qualified, I went out with a full fuel load and did some laps at 222, almost 223. We’ll do some checking on it Thursday (carburetion day) and be rarin’ to go Sunday.”

If there is a flaw in Unser’s career, it is that--despite his early sprint car training--he has never won an Indy car race on an oval track.

When asked about this strange situation, Little Al smiled and said, “My first Indy win will be my first oval win.”