Unser’s Move in Family Tradition : Auto racing: Driver switched to Penske team after an unhappy parting of the ways with Galles.

In 11 years as an Indy car driver, Al Unser Jr. has had a remarkable career--he has won the Indianapolis 500, the PPG Cup national championship and 19 races--but the second-generation driver from Albuquerque, N.M., says his best years are ahead of him.

“I’m with the best team I’ve ever had,” he said the other day. “Now that I’m with Roger Penske, I don’t see how things can get anything but better.”

After three seasons with Doug Shierson and eight with Rick Galles, Unser signed with Penske, the winningest owner in Indy car history, after the 1993 season.

“I’ve been wanting to get with Penske for a long time,” Unser said. “My dad (four-time Indy 500 winner Al Unser) and my uncle Bobby (three-time Indy winner) both drove for Penske and both of them told me nothing but good things could happen to me if I made the move.”

Since 1969, Penske-owned cars have won nine Indianapolis 500s, eight Indy car championships and 79 races, including eight of 16 last year. The late Lou Moore is a distant second among owners with 38 victories.

Unser is now part of a three-driver team with Emerson Fittipaldi of Brazil, last year’s Indy 500 winner and a two-time Formula One champion, and Paul Tracy of Canada, winner of five races in his first full Indy car season last year.

“I know I’ve always said I wanted to be a one-driver team, but all of the top teams have two drivers now,” Unser said. “Penske is just taking it one step farther. The way I look at it, with three drivers testing, we get that much more information. Each one of us has our own engineer and crew chief and (team manager) Chuck Sprague makes sure all the information is pooled and everyone gets the same input.

“That didn’t happen with Galles, and that’s one of the main reasons I wanted out, even though we had a good run together. Galles told me that Danny Sullivan and I would share everything we learned, but then I’d show up at a race and Danny would have things on his car that I didn’t have.

“When something like that happens, and it happened several times, it undermines your confidence. Then, when Danny took me out at Long Beach in ’92 when we could have run 1-2--and got congratulated for it--I knew it was time to leave.”

With two laps remaining in the Long Beach Grand Prix, Unser was leading in quest of a record fifth consecutive victory on the street course when he was tapped from behind by teammate Sullivan. The impact spun Unser around, allowing Sullivan to win.

Galles’ reaction: “I thought it was a whale of a race, and a clean race.” Unser, although he denied it at the time, apparently thought otherwise.

Sullivan was released by Galles last week when his sponsor dropped out of racing. That leaves Galles with only one driver, rookie Adrian Fernandez of Mexico.

Unser said he first had thoughts of leaving Galles nearly two years ago when he was told that the Galmer chassis building program was being shut down. Galles and car designer Alan Mertens had formed a partnership in 1990 to build their own car instead of racing store-bought Lolas.

“When I signed a three-year contract with Galles in 1990, I was promised my own race car, which is what you need these days to win consistently,” Unser said. “The car didn’t show up until 1992, but it was a good car. It won Indy--we were awfully lucky--and was very reliable. That’s why we won Indy, because we were there at the finish after Michael (Andretti) dropped out.”

Andretti led 163 of the 200 laps, often by nearly a full lap, before the car sputtered to a stop with 11 laps remaining. Unser beat Scott Goodyear to the wire in the closest finish in Indy car history.

“I was devastated the night before Indy when Rick told me he was shooting the Galmer project down,” Unser said. “I was stunned, shocked. Winning the next day didn’t change anything. As far as I was concerned, the race team went downhill from then on.”

Although the announcement of Unser’s move to Penske was not revealed until after the final race of 1993 last October at Laguna Seca, negotiations were under way much earlier.

“Roger and I have talked about getting together for a number of years, but every time he had an opening, I couldn’t move, and when I could move, he didn’t have an opening. We were just out of sync.

“We wanted to keep it quiet during the season because when moves like that get out early, it hurts both teams. I still had races to run for Galles and I wanted to win as much as ever, and Emmo (Fittipaldi) was going for the championship so Roger didn’t want any disruptions.”

Unser’s only victory last year was at Vancouver, in August.

“The only disappointing thing for me was that I wasn’t able to leave after the ’92 season,” he said. “I told Galles I wanted out. One day he would tell me he didn’t want a driver around who didn’t want to be around, and the next day he’d tell me he was holding me to my contract. I just had to swallow my pride and get on with it. It made for a long year. But now I’m free.”

Unser has been testing Penske’s new car, a ’94 Marlboro Penske Ilmor V-8, since it arrived in early December from the team shops in Poole, England.

“There’s hardly any difference between it and the ’93 car, which is fine because the ’93 was the best chassis on the circuit last year,” he said. “The Chevy engine was a little down on horsepower to the Ford Cosworth. This year we hope the new Ilmor D engine will give us more horsepower.”

Nigel Mansell won the Indy car championship last year in a Lola powered by a Ford Cosworth, but the next three, Fittipaldi, Tracy and Bobby Rahal, all had Chevrolet engines. Unser, in a Lola-Chevrolet, finished seventh.

Chevrolet, which lent its nameplate to the Ilmor Engineering engine for a substantial sum of money for the last eight years, withdrew from Indy car racing last October. However, Mario Illian and Paul Morgan, who founded Ilmor, announced that they would continue to build engines, including the new D model for 1994.

“We’ve tested well and our lap times compare favorably with what we’ve heard from other teams, but you never know until you get down and run in race conditions,” Unser said. “What I really like is that we’re testing and testing is what gets results.”

Last Monday, a test at Phoenix ended abruptly when a cut tire sent the new Penske into the wall coming out of the fourth turn.

“The car spun around and went in (the wall) backwards,” Unser said. “It hit square with the gearbox and knocked the wind out of me. It usually doesn’t do that, but it did this time.

“The tub never hit with the front end, so we were lucky. It wasn’t as bad a hit as it could have been.”

Unser sees the 1994 season, which will start March 20 in Australia, as the most competitive since he joined the circuit at 20 for the 1982 Riverside race.

“Nigel will be back with a year’s experience and Mario (Andretti) will be tough because he wants to make a strong showing in his last year. Then Michael (Andretti) is back (from Formula One) with a Reynard that has tested very quick with the Ford Cosworth engine. Reynard has a great track record in building chassis for other series, so it should be quick right out of the box in Michael’s hands.

“Bobby Rahal has a new Honda engine that Mike Groff has been testing. From the way Honda performed in Formula One, I imagine he’ll be very strong. Robby Gordon was quick at times last year and now that he’s moved (from A.J. Foyt) to Derrick Walker, he should do a lot better.

“It’s getting tougher and tougher every year. I’m just glad I made the move I made. It’s a great feeling to know that I’m driving for the best team in racing.”