Perfect Place for Unser to End Slump : Auto racing: He’s returning to Long Beach, where he has won five of the last seven races.

The PPG Indy Car series comes to the streets of Long Beach this weekend for the Toyota Grand Prix and no one is happier about that than Al Unser Jr.

Unser, last year’s national champion and the Long Beach winner, is not off to a good start in defending the No. 1 designation on his Mercedes-powered Penske.

In three races, he has not led a single lap. He finished 15th at Miami, sixth in Australia and eighth last Sunday in Phoenix.

Quite a contrast to last year, when he won eight races, led 677 laps and was a runaway winner of the drivers’ championship.

Long Beach might be just what Unser needs.

The Long Beach Grand Prix has been almost his private domain. He has won five of the last seven races--four in a row from 1988 to 1991, then again last year. He was seemingly on his way to another victory in 1992 when he got shunted off course by Danny Sullivan, his teammate at the time.

Almost one-fifth of Unser’s 27 Indy car victories have been on the course across the channel from the Queen Mary, and it’s where he won for the first time after joining Roger Penske’s fleet of championship drivers last year.

“I’d like to keep the streak going,” Unser said. “I’ve been fortunate in having a new car to drive every year at Long Beach. I have always enjoyed the track. Of course, you always do when you win there.

“I enjoyed it more when we raced through the hotel garage, though. Since they took it out, the course isn’t as interesting for the drivers.”

When Unser won his first LBGP, the circuit was 1.67 miles, but construction in the area has caused it to shrink to 1.59 miles for Sunday’s 105-lap main event.

“People who expected (the Penske team) to pick up right where we left off last year didn’t take into account how hard all the other teams worked over the winter,” Unser said. “I don’t mean just race teams, I mean chassis manufacturers, engine builders and the tire companies.

“And there are more competitive teams running Indy cars. Look at the first three races--three different drivers, three teams, two chassis. Lola and Reynard worked very hard on their ’95 cars and they’ve both closed the gap between their cars and ours.

“The only thing all the winners had was the Ford Cosworth engine.”

In a strange footnote to the 1995 racing season, Fords have powered all three Indy car winners and Chevrolet has won all six NASCAR Winston Cup races.

“The Mercedes engine we’re using is essentially the same as the Ilmor (Chevrolet) we had last year. Ford Cosworth used to be the dominant engine for years, then Ilmor made one for Chevrolet that dominated. Now Cosworth has come back and built a better engine. It is definitely the better engine at the moment.”

Unser, who will turn 33 next week, bristles when anyone hints that complacency has set in on the Penske team. Emerson Fittipaldi’s third place at Phoenix has been the only podium finish for a Penske driver this year.

“Sure, we got our butts kicked, but it wasn’t for lack of effort,” he said. “I tested more this year than last, partly because Paul (Tracy) is gone. Last year, all three of us shared the testing.”

Penske let Tracy go after the 1994 season because a three-car team was too expensive for a full season. The young Canadian, who last week moved into a new home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb, joined the Paul Newman-Carl Haas team as a replacement for Nigel Mansell, who returned to Formula One.

“We were fortunate last year,” Unser said. “Everything just fell our way. Every race, we felt that one of our three cars was going to win, and it almost happened that way. We were lucky a few times. Of course, we had everyone covered at Indy with the 209 (cubic inch stock-block) Mercedes last year, but that won’t happen this year with the rule changes.

“Look back at Indy cars and you’ll find that rarely does one car dominate the way we did last year. Michael (Andretti) won eight races in ’91 and I won eight last year, but five or six is normal.”

Unser pinpoints a tire compound as one reason for the Penskes’ slow start.

“Goodyear came up with a new tire for the road races, a much better tire than we had last year, but it is patterned after the Formula 3000 racing tire they use in Europe. It takes a little getting used to, and that was beneficial early in the year to the Reynard and Lola teams because they have road-track experience with it in Formula 3000.

“The new tire has better grip and once we get the hang of it, we’ll be right there.”

Jacques Villeneuve, at Miami, and Robby Gordon, at Phoenix, won driving Reynards. Tracy won in Australia with a Lola.

Maybe it’s going to Long Beach, or maybe it’s a feeling that he’s due, but Unser seemed far from discouraged despite finishing eighth, three laps down to Gordon, in the Phoenix 200.

“The car ran beautiful,” he said. “I really feel we had the best-handling car out there. Unfortunately, the electronic gremlins bit me again.”

Electrical problems also plagued his car at Miami, where he lost 11 laps in the pits while the crew worked on the electronics.

The gremlins were of his own making in Australia, however. Unser was running fourth during a caution period, but when he jumped Teo Fabi on the restart, he was black-flagged and had to pit for a stop-and-go penalty.

“On the way out of the pits, I was steamed and went a little too fast, so it was another stop-and-go penalty,” he said. “By that time, I was all the way back to 24th place. I spent the rest of the day driving as hard as I could to make up ground. I finally got up to sixth so we got some points.”

After three races, Unser is tied for 12th with 13 points.

“At this point, this year isn’t much different from last year,” he noted. “We only had 16 points coming to Long Beach, and look what happened.”

Unser led 61 of 105 laps, starting a three-race winning streak that included his second Indianapolis 500 and the Milwaukee 200. He clinched his second PPG Cup championship at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., with two races left on the schedule.

His earnings last year of more than $3.5 million made the driver from Albuquerque the all-time Indy car money winner with $15.4 million in 14 seasons.