bob jennings' WORLD O' RACING
Big Al on "500" Pole day 1985
(completed
06/28/98)
Al Unser is interviewed after qualifying seventh, at 210.523, for the 1985 "Indianapolis 500"
Bob Jennings
Big Al was my all time favorite racing guy. Al Unser has given me more great racing memories than anyone. Over the years, I've taken several hundred photos of Al. This particular photo is one of my favorites.
I was in turn one shooting action photos, standing on the edge of the creek when Al made his qualifying run. After Al finished the run, I rushed up to the area, at the south end of the pits, where the drivers do their post qualification routine, in time to catch Al being interviewed for the ABC coverage. I may be mistaken, but I believe the ABC interviewer was Jack Arute, when he had hair.
Pole day 1985, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was one of those rare times, in recent history, when the weather was near perfect, with sunny blue skies, mild temperatures and almost no wind, for the opening day of qualifications.
Thinking back now, Pole day 1985 may have been one of the final two or three times when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway saw crowds in excess of 100,000 people for "500" qualifications. Perhaps 1985, 1986 and 1988 were the final times the "big" crowds came out for Pole day. There have been so many "500" Pole days interrupted by rain over the past 20 years and that may have helped to lessen the appeal as much as the passing of time and the changing of people's entertainment preferences.
Roger Penske replaced Al with Danny Sullivan for 1985, but asked Al to remain with the team for Indianapolis and the other two 500 mile races, at Michigan International Speedway and Pocono. From that point on, Al Unser was a part time racing driver. He was not quite 46, when this photo was taken, and he was still, on his day, the best racing driver in the CART series.
He had already given the CART championship to Team Penske, in his first season with the team, in cars that were not up to the performance of the faster Marches. The 1983 Penske PC11 was such an inferior package that Roger Penske replaced it with the 1982 model PC10 before the 1983 season concluded, in an attempt to save the title for Al.
Al had come close to winning his fourth "Indianapolis 500," in 1983, leading 60 laps and finishing within ten or eleven seconds of winner Tom Sneva, in second place, while Penske team "number one" Rick Mears finished third, one lap behind.
Despite the disadvantages with the 1983 Penske package, Al won the CART event, in Cleveland, and added three more second place finishes to his Indianapolis finish and had five more top five finishes, to win the championship by five points over Teo Fabi.
The 1984 Penske cars were worse and they were replaced with Marches at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Rick Mears had a convincing win in the 1984 "Indianapolis 500," and then suffered career threatening injuries to his legs, in a crash at Sanair, in September.
Al's 1984 season was mediocre in Penske's red and white Miller High Life entry. He failed to win a race. His best finishes included a distant third, at Indianapolis, and another third place at Elkhart Lake. He was ninth in the final season point standings.
After his initial run of mega-success, in the years 1968 through 1971, Al's characteristic trait was consistent performance. If his car was decent, Al could usually be counted on to run in contention. If he didn't like his car, Unser preferred not to "over drive." Apparently that didn't go over too well with Roger Penske, who was accustomed to having his cars in front in those days.
In contrast, Danny Sullivan emerged as a CART winner in 1984.
Danny made his CART debut, in 1982, driving for Jerry Forsythe and Garvin Brown, then joined the Tyrrell Formula One team for 1983. He returned to CART in 1984, driving for Doug Shierson's Dominos Pizza team.
The Shierson team began the 1984 season with their own chassis, the DSR1. The new car did not perform well and Shierson purchased a Lola for Sullivan, at Indianapolis, and withdrew Danny's originally qualified DSR1.
The package jelled by July and Sullivan took his first Indy car win, at Cleveland, followed by wins at Pocono and Sanair. Roger Penske would later comment that Danny's win, at Pocono, in which he out ran Rick Mears, was the primary factor in his decision to replace Unser with Sullivan.
The battle for the 1985 "Indianapolis 500" Pole Position was one of the most wide open in years, with Mears, who was making his return to racing, after his Sanair injuries, the previous September, included in a group with Sullivan, Mario Andretti, Bobby Rahal, Don Whittington and Emerson Fittipaldi as the leading Pole contenders.
The competition among the top teams, for the Pole, was so intense that Penske hired a plane to circle the Indianapolis area to advise his team of any change in local weather conditions, while qualifying was taking place.
The star of Pole day 1985, however, was the Buick V6 turbo engine that had made its Indianapolis debut the previous year.
Scott Brayton set the one lap record, at 214.199 mph, with a four lap average of 212.354 mph, to take second spot on the grid, in his family owned March - Buick V6. Pancho Carter set the four lap record, with a run at 212.583 mph, in Rick Galles' Valvoline March - Buick V6, to win the Pole.
The two Buick powered cars were followed, in order, by Bobby Rahal (211.818), Mario Andretti (211.576), Emerson Fittipaldi (211.322), Don Whittington (210.991) and Unser (210.523). The runs of both Sullivan and Mears were disappointing. Danny qualified next to Al, in eighth, at 210.298 mph, and Rick qualified tenth, at 209.796 mph.