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Al Unser died at the age of 82



Al Unser, one of only four drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 record four times, died Thursday after a long illness. He was 82 years old.

Unser died at his home in Chama, New Mexico, with his wife, Susan, at his side, Indianapolis Highway said early Friday. He has been battling cancer for 17 years.

“My heart is very sad. My father passed away last night,” said son Al Unser Jr., two-time Indy 500 winner, posted on social media. “He was a great man and an even greater father. Rest in peace dad! ”

Unser is the third member of one of America’s most famous racing families to die in 2021. His eldest brother, three-time Indy 500 champion Bobby Unser, passed away in May, and Bobby Unser Jr passed away 6 weeks after his father.

Known as “Big Al” after his son had made a name for himself in motorsport, Unser is part of an elite club of four-time winners of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”. “. Unser won the Indy 500 in 1970, 1971, 1978 and 1987, and is the only driver in history with a sibling and child to also win one of the world’s greatest races.

His final victory at the age of 47 made him the oldest winner in Indy 500 history. He dominated his first Indy win in 1970 by starting from the pole and leading the way. top all but 10 out of 200 rounds. That year, Unser beat runner-up Mark Donohue by 32 seconds.

“Al is the pitch type,” said competitor Johnny Rutherford.

Unser has led more than half of the laps in three of his 500 Indy wins, and his 644 lap total at Indianapolis is the most in race history. He took the final lap lead of the 1987 race to break Ralph DePalma’s 75-year-old record of 612 laps in the lead, and Unser went on to lead another 31 laps in his final five starts to break the landmark.

He made 27 starts in the Indy 500, the third most in history, and qualified once in the column and five in the top.

Unser has won three Indy car national championships in his career and 39 championships— sixth on the all-time list.

He and his son Al Jr were the first father-son duo in Indianapolis, and in 1985 they fought each other for the CART championship. A pass in the final laps of the race saw Unser finish fourth in the season finale at Tamiami Park in Miami, and just one point was enough for him to beat Al Jr to win the championship. He held back tears as he described the “empty feeling” of beating his son.

Unser also runs five NASCAR races in his career, finishing fourth at the Daytona 500 in 1968. He had three top 10 finishes at NASCAR. He’s also three times won the International Race of Champions, an all-star series pitting top drivers from a variety of disciplines against each other.

Unser won the “Triple Crown” Indy car by winning all three of the 500-mile races on the 1978 schedule, including stops at Pocono Raceway and Ontario, California. He’s the only driver in history to win all three of those races in the same season.

The Unser family combined for a record nine wins in the Indy 500; Al Jr won the Indy 500 twice – in 1992 and 1994. Coincidentally, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Unser both won their last Indy 500s driving for Roger Penske. Castroneves won the first three Indy 500 slots for Penske.

Unser earlier this year, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to welcome Helio Castroneves as the newest member of the four-time champion club.. Unser trailed AJ Foyt, and Rick Mears won his fourth in 1991. Castroneves won in May to become the first new member in 30 years.

“Some days the track smiled at you and some days, you did it the other way around,” Unser said during the July celebrations. “You don’t always think you’ll win because your chances are slim. There are 32 other guys who want it as badly as you.”

Unser received her Baby Borg – an 18-inch replica of the Indy 500 winner’s Borg-Warner Trophy that lives on the highway’s museum grounds – during a celebration in May with his family and friends. friend. He was honored in 2020 on the 50th anniversary of his 1970 victory in Indianapolis, but the celebration was postponed because of the pandemic.

Both Castroneves and two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato praised Unser, with Sato calling Unser’s speech at the May winner’s ceremony “very funny and very charming.”

“I will always remember Big Al welcoming me to the highway,” Castroneves told The Associated Press on Friday. “He and Johnny Rutherford were the two people who helped me navigate rookies. He will be ignored.”

The youngest of four racing brothers, Unser was born in Albuquerque in 1939 into a family of heavyweight racers. His father, Jerry Unser, and two uncles, Louis and Joe, are also drivers. Starting in 1926, the family began to compete in Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a road race held annually in Colorado.

Al’s eldest brother, Jerry, became the first Unser to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1958; He was killed in an accident during practice the following year.

Unser started racing on his own in 1957 when he was 18, but competed almost exclusively in sprint cars. He reached Indy in 1965 driving a car owned by Foyt and was part of a rookie class alongside future Indy 500 winners Mario Andretti (1969) and Gordon Johncock (1973, 1982). .

Andretti said: “Al is one of the smartest drivers I have ever raced. “I often say that I wish I could have had a little bit of his patience.”

The Unser family adds up to 73 careers starting with the Indy 500 – a number only better than the 76 started by the Andretti family. Unser’s participation includes Al (27 races), Bobby (19) and Al Jr. (19), as well as Johnny (five), Robby (two) and Jerry (one).

Unser was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 1986 and the International Sports Car Hall of Fame in 1998. His car and title collection is housed at the Unser Racing Museum in Albuquerque. .

Unser was survived by his wife, Susan, and son, Al Jr., before the deaths of their daughters Mary and Deborah.





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