INDIANAPOLIS 500 / UPDATE : Unser Can Hit the Speedway Wall Without Having to Leave His Home

Every driver who wins the Indianapolis 500 treasures a memento of the occasion. Sometimes it’s the pace car, sometimes a checkered flag signed by all the drivers, sometimes a painting of the finish.

Al Unser Jr., last year’s winner, has an 80-foot section of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway wall, complete with five poles, fencing, cable, a USAC observer’s stand and green and yellow track lights.

“I asked (track President) Tony George what he was going to do with the old wall when they tore it down (for track renovation),” Unser said. “He said that they were going to throw it away, so I said, ‘If it’s OK, could I have a section of the wall and erect it back up at my property?’ Tony gave it to me, and now it’s home in Albuquerque.

“We shipped it on a flatbed truck and had to use a forklift to get it off the truck. It came in eight 10-foot pieces, so we had to put all the pieces together and mortar it so it all looked like one piece.

“It looks like a little bit of Indy going into my office. I can see it from my office, and you can also see the white walls and green poles from the road driving by. It came from the exit of Turn 3--the short chute.”

Of course, it is also a memento of the race he didn’t win--when he tangled with Emerson Fittipaldi on the next-to-last lap in 1989 and slid into the wall in that same Turn 3.

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A. J. Foyt--still not saying if he will try to qualify for his 35th Indy 500 on Saturday--stirred the pot Tuesday when he climbed into his No. 14 Lola and drove 50 laps. His top speed was 212.154 m.p.h., but after his run, he said: “I don’t know yet. If everything works good and feels good, I’ll do it. I can’t afford to injure my legs again, and I have good days and bad days with them.”

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Arie Luyendyk, the 1990 winner, moved into the top spot on the speed list with a lap at 225.898 m.p.h. in Chip Ganassi’s Lola-Ford Cosworth.

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Mario Andretti has been coming to Indianapolis since 1965, when he was rookie of the year, so he has an unusual perspective on the changes in speeds.

“In my first Indy 500, the limit of what you could see in front of you equaled about seven seconds,” he said. “Now it equals about 1 1/2 seconds.”

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Dale Armstrong, the mechanic given much of the credit for helping Kenny Bernstein become the first drag racer to exceed 300 m.p.h. from a standing start in a quarter-mile, is working in Roberto Guerrero’s crew.

He is not tweaking Guerrero’s Chevy engine, however. He will handle the stop sign in the pits on race day.

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John Morton’s hope of becoming the Indy 500’s oldest rookie driver, at 51, apparently ended when the El Segundo driver and McCormack Motorsports failed to come to an agreement. Morton had passed the first three phases of his rookie test before losing the ride.