Fittipaldi Avoids Wreck, Wins at Phoenix : Auto racing: No one is seriously injured in five-car accident. Unser Jr. finishes second.

After the most frightening multi-car accident ever seen at Phoenix International Raceway took out pole-sitter Paul Tracy and four others, Emerson Fittipaldi and Al Unser Jr. gave the Penske Marlboro team a 1-2 finish Sunday in the Slick-50 200 Indy car race.

Defending PPG Cup champion Nigel Mansell, driving a backup car after damaging his primary Lola-Ford in a late afternoon crash during Saturday’s practice, finished third, a lap behind the Penske teammates.

“I’m just happy I’m sitting here, it was one of the scariest times I’ve ever had in motor racing,” said the former world Formula One champion from England, who expressed concerns about the safety of the track after record speeds were set during qualifying.

The five-car pileup started on lap 62. Hiro Matsushita, who was 16 laps down at the time after making several pit stops, found himself sandwiched between two faster cars heading for the third turn. One got past on the low side, but Teo Fabi, trying to squeeze between Matsushita and the wall, clipped wheels with the young Japanese driver from San Clemente.

The impact sent both cars into the wall, but Matsushita’s ended up in the middle of the track. That seemed to be the end of it as the yellow caution lights came on.

“Several seconds went by, as did many cars under the yellow,” Matsushita said. “Then I saw (Jacque) Villeneuve coming straight at me.”

Villeneuve, forced to remain in a high groove because he had two cars on his left, smashed his Reynard directly into the center panel of Matsushita’s car, breaking it in half. The nose and cockpit, with the driver inside, slid to the left. The engine and gearbox went to the right.

“It was an incredible hit,” said Matsushita, who suffered only a shoulder separation. “I cannot believe the car withstood so much force. I was lucky to walk away.”

Few among the 58,000 spectators could believe it, either, when Matsushita climbed out of the car and walked away.

Villeneuve continued down the track and slid in front of Dominic Dobson. Tracy, who was leading the race at the time, was pinned against the wall by pieces of Matsushita’s broken car. “I thought I was clear, but obviously I was wrong,” Dobson said.

It was the second year in a row Tracy crashed while leading the race. Last year, he was more than a lap ahead when he slid out while trying to lap another car.

“I saw Hiro and someone else get together,” Tracy said. “I thought I could get through it when something hit me.”

More fortunate were Fittipaldi, Unser and Mansell.

“I came along right in the middle of it and didn’t know where to go,” Mansell said. “Half a car was flying one way and half a car was flying another. When I got through, I went down the straight too slow because I didn’t know if I had run over debris. That’s when (Fittipaldi) pitted, took on four tires and fuel and was gone. That’s where I lost the lap.”

It took safety crews 27 laps under caution conditions to clean up the debris, which along with two other accidents, contributed to Fittipaldi’s slow winning speed of 107.437 m.p.h. for 200 laps around the D-shaped, one-mile track.

Dusty conditions, caused by gusts of up to 40 m.p.h., caused Michael Andretti to run up into the rear of two slower cars, knocking Andretti out of the race on lap 162.

“I came around the corner (in the third turn) and I saw a big cloud of dust and I thought it was a sand storm,” Andretti said. “It was blinding.”

In a chain reaction from the crash, a wheel flew off Andretti’s car and sailed over the fence into a hillside spectator area. The huge tire hit once and bounced toward a tent, sending spectators scurrying. Four people were injured, none seriously.

Mario Andretti, making the final start of his career in Phoenix--where his Indy car career started 30 years ago--also crashed because of a cut tire after driving over debris. A piece of Andretti’s wing hit Raul Boesel in the helmet, braking his visor.