MOTOR RACING : In Close Vote, Al Unser Jr. Wins Contest of Dominating Drivers

In selecting the 1990 American driver of the year, how would you choose between Al Unser Jr., the Indy car champion, and Dale Earnhardt, the stock car champion?

Both were dominating. Unser won six of 16 races, clinched the PPG Cup a race before the season ended and earned $1,936,833. Earnhardt was taken to the final race before he won the Winston Cup for the fourth time, but he won nine of 29 races, and when he accepts a check for $1 million as the NASCAR champion next Friday night in New York, it will increase his year’s earnings to more than $3 million.

In their only head-to-head competition, Earnhardt won the three-race International Race of Champions series. Earnhardt won races on the high banks at Talladega and the airport course at Cleveland to beat Unser for the IROC title. The series added another $175,000 to Earnhardt’s bank account. Unser, who had won two IROCs, finished second for the third time in five years.

A panel of 10 motorsports journalists selected Unser in one of the closest votes in the 24-year history of the award. Unser received five first-place votes, Earnhardt three and two voted for a tie. This gave Unser 78 points to 72 for Earnhardt, far ahead of drag racer Joe Amato with 26 and IMSA champion Geoff Brabham with 25.

This was the first time that the first four drivers represented different types of racing.

Al Unser Jr., 27, is the third Unser to win the coveted award. His father, Al, was the recipient in 1970 and his uncle, Bobby, won in 1974. Earnhardt was driver of the year in 1987.

A midsummer stretch of four consecutive victories in his Valvoline Lola enabled Unser to pass Michael Andretti and win the championship with a record 210 points to 181 for Andretti. His streak included victories at Toronto, Michigan International Speedway, Denver and Vancouver.

Unser won the title while sitting in a hospital examination room at Easton, Pa., after suffering a mild concussion in the CART race earlier in the day at Nazareth, Pa. When Andretti failed to win the race, it assured Unser of the championship.

It was Unser’s first title since he became a full-time CART driver in 1983. In 1985 he lost the championship to his father by one point in the closest finish in Indy car history. In 1988 he was second again, to Danny Sullivan.

Three of his six victories had special significance. When he won at Long Beach, it was his third consecutive victory on the ocean-front street course. When he won at Milwaukee, it was his first victory on an oval track after winning 10 races on road or street tracks. When he won the Marlboro 500 on Michigan’s two-mile superspeedway, it was his first in a 500-mile race.

Unser’s winning average speed of 189.727 m.p.h. at Michigan was the fastest 500 miles ever run.

Earnhardt, 38, could not shake Mark Martin in the race for the NASCAR championship until the final 500 miles at Atlanta, but he and his black Mr. Goodwrench Chevy Lumina dominated the Winston Cup season as much as Unser did the PPG Cup.

He won nine races. No one else won more than three. In one of the biggest “what if’s” in racing--what if Earnhardt hadn’t run over some debris and cut his tire in the third turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500? He would have been on his way to the $1-million bonus given to any driver who wins three races among the Daytona 500, Winston 500 at Talladega, Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and Southern 500 at Darlington.

After his disappointment in seeing Derrike Cope and three others slip past his limping car at Daytona, Earnhardt came back to win the Talladega and Darlington races. And to further his dominance at Daytona, he won the 400-mile race there in July.

“We should have won the Winston Million, and we know we could have won it if we hadn’t cut that tire at Daytona,” Earnhardt said. “But they don’t call it the Daytona 499, do they?”

Earnhardt was most impressive at Phoenix, where he arrived trailing Martin by 45 points with two races remaining and left with a 12-point advantage. Earnhardt led the first 273 of 312 laps and so intimidated Martin that the Ford driver offered no challenge in the final race at Atlanta.

Chevrolet won the manufacturers championship in both CART and NASCAR. In Indy cars,Chevy-powered machinery won all 16 races. In Winston Cup, the competition went to Atlanta where Earnhardt’s third-place finish enabled the team to tie Ford in season-long points, but Chevy won by virtue of the most victories, 13 to 11.

The driver of the year presentation will be made to Unser at a luncheon at the 21 Club in New York on Friday, Dec. 7. That night, at the Waldorf-Astoria, Earnhardt will receive his check for $1 million at the annual NASCAR banquet.

“I think I deserved to be named driver of the year, but I wouldn’t trade it for sitting at the head table at the Waldorf,” Earnhardt said. “And if I couldn’t get it, I’m glad Little Al did. He’s a great competitor and I like him.”

MOTORCYCLES--For the first time in 22 years, speedway racing fans will get an off-season show when the Coors Speedway Fall Classic is held Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Several British League riders, including Billy Hamill, Sam Ermolenko, Ronnie Correy, Gary Hicks and Greg Hancock, will ride against such local favorites as U.S. champion Mike Faria, Alan Christian, Bobby Schwartz and Brad Oxley. Sidecars will also race. The regular speedway season does not start until March.

SPRINT CARS--The final race of the California Racing Assn. season has been moved from Sunday to Dec. 9 to make way for a country and western concert at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield.

ASCOT AFTERMATH--Overlooked in the nostalgia over the closing race at Ascot Park last Thursday night was a remarkable performance by midget car driver Ricky Gray of Sepulveda. Gray, after failing to qualify, won a race for non-qualifiers that got him into the Last Chance semifinal and he won that to get into the Turkey Night Grand Prix main event, where he finished 10th. . . . Ben Foote, racing publicist and Agajanian Enterprises executive vice president, was honored by the Motor Sports Hall of Honor for his 19 years of service at Ascot Park.

OFF ROAD--Ivan Stewart and other champions of the High Desert Racing Assn./SCORE season will be honored Saturday night with an awards banquet at the Gold Coast Hotel in Las Vegas.

NECROLOGY--Memorial services for Bill Vukovich III, who died of head injuries last Sunday after a crash at Mesa Marin Raceway, will be held Friday at 1 p.m. at Northwest Church, Barstow and West avenues, in Fresno. Vukovich, a third-generation Indy 500 driver, was warming up for a CRA sprint car race when his car ran head-on into the third turn wall. A Billy Vukovich Memorial Scholarship Fund has been opened in care of Yosemite Union High (his alma mater), Oakhurst, Calif. 96344.