This Sunday of course is Father's Day. With that, domestic racing is mostly taking the week off (deservedly so in the case of IndyCar after their 10 week marathon).
Sons following their fathers is nothing new in racing. Stock cars have the Pettys, Earnhardts, and now the Elliots and Kenseths. F1 has the Hills and the Piquets, and IndyCar of course has the Andrettis, Rahals, and the Unsers. This post is about the latter and what they did 30 years ago. I don't know how big a deal it was then (1985 was the year I was born), but I'm pretty sure that if this happened today, it would be huge. I am of course talking about when Big Al and Little Al fought to the very end for the CART championship.
Even from reading about it and then seeing the races on YouTube (big thanks to Andrew Sopher and his amazing collection of old races he's posted for that), it's a phenomenal story that really can only happen in racing.
Big Al was at the time a 3 time Indy 500 winner and the 1983 national champion. However, he was coming off a disappointing 1984 and saw him go winless and finish just 9th in the points. It looked like his time as a full-time Penske driver was done, but with Rick Mears still recovering from his horrible crash at Sanair, Unser was kept around to sub for Mears on the road courses. At least that was the original plan.
Little Al, meanwhile, was still establishing himself. In 1984, he won his first career race. For 1985, he would move from Galles Racing to Doug Shierson's outfit, driving the famed Domino's Pizza Hot One. The car would be a Lola. The March was still the dominant chassis at the time, but the Lola gained notice the year before when Mario Andretti drove it to the national championship.
As 1985 started, it looked like Mario was primed to repeat as champion. He won three of the first four races at Long Beach, Milwaukee, and Portland, with a 2nd at the Indy 500 (to Danny Sullivan in the famous Spin and Win). Alas, it all fell apart for Mario after that. Crashes (including one at Michigan that broke his collarbone and forced him to miss a race for the first time in his career), fires, and mechanical failures littered the rest of his season and limited him to one top five the rest of the way.
Other contenders in 1985 included Sullivan and Bobby Rahal. Sullivan started well, but a five race slump from Portland to Road America took him out of contention. Rahal had a fast car all year, winning three times and earning six poles. What doomed Bobby was a poor start. In the first six races, his best finish was 9th. He was the hottest driver of the second half, but the damage had been done.
Little Al also started slowly, finishing 9th, 25th, and 7th in the first three races. He first got hot at Portland, finishing 2nd. He followed that up with consecutive victories at the Meadowlands and Cleveland. Big Al, meanwhile, was doing what Big Al tended to do: bring the car home and score good points. Not counting Milwaukee, where he demurred to Mears, his *worst* finish through Pocono was a 7th at Road America. At Pocono, Big Al finished 3rd to Mears and his son and took the points lead for the first time. By then, it was clear that Unser, Sr. was not just a fill-in driver anymore.
However, that was when Big Al faced setbacks for the first time in 1985. At Mid-Ohio, he lasted just 12 laps before being felled with a broken suspension. Little Al would finish 4th. At Sanair, Big Al led the most laps but wrecked from the lead with 27 laps to go. His son would finish 3rd* and take the points lead.
(* This race ended with the green flag inexplicably being waved as the field came off turn 4 on the final lap. Pancho Carter passed Johnny Rutherford before the checkered flag and took the win before officials realized that was insane and gave the win back to Rutherford. Something to note: Officiating was *always* screwy.)
Neither Unser did much at the second Michigan race, but a Senior was 2nd at Laguna Seca and Junior 3rd. At that point, son led father by 3 points. At Phoenix though, Senior won the race (his only win of the year) in front of Junior to take a 3 point lead himself into the season finale at Tamiami Park in Miami. It was officially down to father vs. son for the championship.
It came down to the final laps. Sullivan and Rahal were comfortably 1-2 and finished that way. Little Al was in 3rd, and late in the race Big Al was in 5th. If it stayed that way, Little Al would've won the title by a single point. Big Al wouldn't give up though. As the laps ticked down, he started to catch Roberto Moreno, and with five laps to go, he passed Moreno to move into 4th. That's how it stayed, and Al Unser, Sr. had won his third national championship by just one point over his son.
Here's video of the dramatic closing laps and the post-race interview with the two. The race was talked about on Senior's SportsCentury episode. That segment is here. The emotion is apparent both at the time and after the fact.
If one were to pick an IndyCar related story that would make a good 30 for 30 type documentary, the 1985 season would certainly qualify. The father/son story would be fascinating alone, but you also have a classic Indy 500, the Sanair lunacy, a tire controversy that postponed the Michigan 500 a week, and Mears's coming back from his injuries. You also had the first career IndyCar win for Emerson Fittipaldi, and the only IndyCar win for Uncle Jacques Villeneuve.
Fathers and sons excelling in the same sport is nothing new. Fathers and sons being contemparies for a little while isn't completely out of the question either. But a father and son (or mother and daughter) being at the absolute top of their sport and competing against each other at the same time? That might not be seen again for a long time, not just in racing, but in any sport.
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