Shifting Gears : Unser Says Bringing Indy Cars to Daytona Could Be Disastrous, but Running Stock Cars at Indy Is Fine

There are tentative plans to run a Winston Cup stock car race in 1994 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but after spending a week in a Chevrolet at Daytona International Speedway, Al Unser Jr. doesn’t believe he could drive an Indy car there.

“The Indy car would run minimum 240 m.p.h. or more (at Daytona and) the technology of the safety wouldn’t be in balance with the speed,” said the 1992 Indianapolis 500 winner, who will be driving his first major NASCAR race Sunday in the Daytona 500.

“If anything was to happen, you’d be mincemeat.”

Reducing speeds to 215 or 220 m.p.h. would be even worse, he said.

“If you slowed them down to what we run at Indy, then it would be too easy to drive on the banks,” Unser said. “You’d have guys running open-wheel cars four abreast around this track, and when you get four abreast, pretty soon somebody is going to go up (on the track). And that’s where the wall is.

“So, if we slow them down, all you’re doing is looking for a wreck. That’s all that would happen, because you’ve got 15 to 20 guys in open-wheel cars moving around each other at the same exact speed.

“You can’t put an Indy car race on such high banks, like here and Charlotte and the other superspeedways, because of the performance level of the car, where you would have to de-tune it so bad that it would become dangerous.”

Unser had somewhat similar problems in his stock car debut Thursday in one of the 125-mile qualifying races for Sunday’s event. He tried to squeeze his Chevrolet--one of Rick Hendrick’s stable--between two other cars in a space that wouldn’t handle three cars.

“I split two guys and I barely touched them,” he said. “I didn’t think I banged up anything, but it knocked the left rear quarterpanel in just enough that it was rubbing the tire. It rubbed it until it poked a hole in it.”

When the tire blew, it sent Unser spinning into the wall and out of the race. He finished next to last, but his qualifying speed of 186.749 m.p.h. earned him the 40th starting position in the 500.

“Racing is racing, but if I’d had this problem at Indy, I’d probably have spent the day or night in the hospital,” he said.

Only A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti have won the Indy and Daytona 500s, although many others have tried.

“Indianapolis is very unique,” Unser said. “It puts pressures on you in its own way, and I’m learning about Daytona’s pressures, too. There’s different pressures down here, but it’s still the same in that you don’t know how you’ll handle it until Sunday evening. It’s quite different, but basically everything is the same in that racing is racing.”

Unser said he would welcome stock cars at Indianapolis. Nine leading NASCAR drivers tested their 3,800-pound stock cars on the low-banked Indianapolis track last summer to check the feasibility of running a Winston Cup race where only Indy cars have run since the track opened in 1909.

“I think it would be good for all of auto racing in America to have NASCAR running in Indianapolis, as long as they don’t go messing with the Indy 500 itself,” he said. “I think that if you were to take a poll (of Indy car drivers), you’d find that most of them would frown on (conflicting with the Indy 500).

“I can’t speak for any other drivers, but some of them, like Bobby Rahal and Johnny Rutherford, have had some comments about the tradition of the Indy race. My dad feels a lot of tradition, too, and so does my Uncle Bobby, but if they don’t mess with the Indy 500, I think it’ll be OK.

“As for myself, I think it would be really good, as long as I have a stock car to drive. If I don’t, then I don’t think it’s so good.”

Unser almost came here in 1989 at the invitation of Richard Childress, owner of the cars Dale Earnhardt has driven to four of his five Winston Cup championships.

“I told Richard I would like to drive at Daytona, but I wanted to talk with Dale first,” Unser said. “When I asked Dale if he’d like to have a teammate, he said, ‘no, no’ in a very loud voice.

“It was the same way I feel about my Indy car. I don’t care for teammates, so I knew where he was coming from.”

But when Unser got his most recent bid, from Hendrick, he said he didn’t bother checking with Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader or Jeff Gordon, Hendrick’s regular drivers.

“I reckoned that I was going to get the same answer from them, too, but Rick already has three drivers, so one more couldn’t matter. But no, I didn’t ask them.”

Unser received a lesson in drafting from Winston Cup veterans Bill Elliott and Ricky Rudd during Friday’s International Race of Champions, in which he finished third behind Elliott and Davey Allison in a race of identically prepared Dodge Daytonas.

“I was looking good for a long time,” Unser said. “It was a lot of fun running up front with Elliott and Rudd when we broke away. I got shuffled back after a yellow caution flag and couldn’t make it back up.”