20 Questions: Al Unser, Sr. and Jr.

Unser is the name of America's most distinguished auto-racing family. Brothers Bobby and Al can lay claim to six Indianapolis 500 wins, as well as five national championships. Now comes another Unser, 23-year-old Al, Jr., known as Little Al and rated by many as the best racing Unser yet---despite losing last season's National crown to his dad in the closest contest ever. Peter Manso met with father and son in their native Albuquerque to talk about love, rivalry and racing.

1.

[Q] Playboy: For years, the press tried to pit the Unser brothers against each other, especially after Bobby won the Indy 500 first. The same thing happened again last season, while you two were battling it out for the national championship. What does this sort of public provocation do to the family?

[A] Al, Sr.: If anything, it's brought us closer. Until Bobby and I got to be front runners, we never discussed it, but then we realized we had to be very careful about how we talked about each other. Reporters wanted to write that Al and I were going to be upset with each other, whoever won the title, but that just didn't happen. If it had been Al instead of me, I would have been just as happy. I couldn't lose either way, see, and going into the season's finale at Tamiami, the race that would decide the championship, I was probably more relaxed than I've ever been.

[A] Al, Jr.: Me, I was a nervous wreck. I had a chance to win an Indy Car championship, which is something I've dreamed about all my life. But pressure from the press wasn't what was getting to me. Nobody put any pressure on me except myself.

[A] Al, Sr.: You can always say, "Didn't you want to win?" Yes, I did, but Al was the only one who could beat me, so there was nothing to lose. One way or another, the title was going to belong to an Unser.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Still, didn't you have conflicting instincts as a racer and as a father? Having beaten Little Al for the championship, you virtually cried on national television, apologizing, "I'm a racer."

[A] Al, Sr.: Well, it came down to whether I should give it to him or race as a racer, and I did what I had to. As a father, I told myself many times afterward that I should have backed off; but when I was in that race car, I couldn't. It was very, very hard---I mean, when I pulled alongside him on the cool-off lap, I wanted to tell him I was sorry. He applauded me. I tried to thank him, but as a father, I knew I had taken something from my son that I could very easily have given to him. And I didn't. So where is the line? There isn't one. I'm a racer. I couldn't give it to him.

[A] Al, Jr.: For Dad to have backed off and then afterward said, "I tried my best and Al earned it" would have been totally false, and there have never been any false feelings between us. Was I disappointed? Sure, I'm not going to lie about it. When I got out of the car and was walking toward Victory Circle, I didn't smile. But the first time I saw Dad, I was very, very happy. It seemed like an eternity before I could hug him. Our whole family is very close, see, and you earn everything you get, just like you give nothing.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Let's go back to Little Al's apprenticeship. Would you have had a sense of disappointment if he hadn't wanted to follow in his father's footsteps?

[A] Al, Sr.: Mario Andretti and I talked about it years ago, just as I discussed it with Parnelli Jones, and neither of them wanted his kids to be race drivers. That was never my position. I started Al when he was nine, and I knew that if he didn't want to race, I'd pick up on that; but until then, I was going to push him. He was a little kid; he didn't know what he wanted to do. By 16, though, he was driving 600-horsepower sprint cars, and you could tell that he really had it.

[A] Al, Jr.: It's true; Dad made it clear that I didn't have to be a race driver. I had run half the season and crashed a couple of times, started to learn what racing's all about, and Dad sat me down and said he didn't care what I did as long as I put my best effort into it. After that, it was really my choice.

[A] Al, Sr.: Everybody was saying, "He's going to blow your ass off." I was coming back with, "I hope he does," but for me, the question was simple: whether he had the ability. It did occur to me that maybe I was pushing him too hard. Driving sprint cars was a very serious step up from the go-carts he'd been driving, and I was putting my boy's life on the line. If you make a mistake, sprint cars bite very hard. Besides which, there were a number of guys out there ganging up on him, wanting to show that the Unser kid wasn't worth shit. I didn't go to the races for a while.

[A] Al, Jr.: Driving sprint cars is dog-eat-dog racing. I found that out my first night. I started dead last and saw that I could get by two guys down the backstretch, only there was this third car I'd never seen on the outside of them, spinning, and it came shooting across the track as I was passing underneath: It caught my rear tire, and the back end of the car just went straight up in the air a good six feet. I came down upright but should have done a couple of barrel rolls. It probably put Dad right through the roof. Afterward, he asked, "Are you OK?" I said, "Yeah, why?"

4.

[Q] Playboy: You never felt that you had to measure up? You've been quoted, not once but often, as referring to your father as your idol.

[A] Al, Jr.: Along with Andretti and A. J. Foyt and Johnny Rutherford and Gordy Johncock. There's no difference in my admiration for these guys and my dad. Last year at Phoenix, when I came in second to Dad, that was the proudest day of my life. It was a one-two Unser finish, the first time anything like that had happened, and if it had been me who came in first, I would have felt the same way. I'm not competing against Dad. I tried my best to knock him off at Tamiami for the championship, but it wasn't my dad I was after---it was that Pennzoil car number five that he happened to be driving.

5.

[Q] Playboy: But in the midst of all the enthusiasm for racing, was there any emphasis on a formal education?

[A] Al, Sr.: That was a problem. Al was going to finish high school whatever he did. But the problem was made worse because I was gone all the time with my own racing, and he was a boy who could finagle and connive. Eventually, he got grounded, which meant he couldn't come back to the race track until he straightened out his grades.

[A] Al, Jr.: I'd sit in school thinking, This isn't going to get me around a race track any quicker, so I ditched as many days of school as I could. I'd be with my buddies out on the mesa, running cars into the ground, driving 'em, beating 'em up, putting 'em sideways. See, I really didn't have an adolescence. From 16, I went to 25; from go-carts, I went into an adult world; and I think I saw something in high school that a lot of people didn't see---namely, that I wasn't going to be there forever and what I wanted to do was totally different from what they (continued on page 198) Al Unser, Sr. And Jr. (continued from page 133) were trying to teach me. Racing isn't your eight-hour-a-day, five-day-a-week job; and as for the pressures of racing, there was no way they could even think of explaining that to you.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Was there ever any kind of head-to-head confrontation between the two of you? It's not uncommon for teenaged sons to tell their fathers to fuck off.

[A] AL, SR: No, never. I wish there had been, because I would have knocked the shit out of him. I can go back to my own father, who did the same thing to me.

7.

[Q] Playboy: When he was young, could you really see Little Al as potentially a great racer, equal to yourself? His progression to faster and faster cars---from sprints to a SuperVee Championship, the Can-Am Championship a year later, then Indy cars at the age of 21---has been extraordinary.

[A] AL, SR.: To a certain extent, yes. But he's come along so quickly---and it usually doesn't happen that way. Many drivers have the ability but not the smartness, and Al, you see, has rarely gotten himself into trouble. Myself, I didn't reach that until I was 30 or 32, maybe. I was still pulling stupid deals, and my brother pulled them until he finally won Indy.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Were there problems when you and Bobby ran against each other, especially early on, when the two of you were "pulling stupid deals"?

[A] AL, SR.: I always wanted to outrun my brother, but Bobby was five years ahead of me, so at first, he was in another class. I didn't sit back and say, "I'm going to let him win because he's my brother," though---no way. None of us has ever done that, just as we haven't let ourselves get carried away, either. That's what makes a racing driver: controlling yourself, knowing where the limit is. It's not fear; it's experience. You learn to tell yourself, "I've extended myself far enough. If I go any further, I'm going to wreck the car."

9.

[Q] Playboy: Fire, mechanical failure, another competitor's losing control in front of you---these are the commonly cited dangers of running at today's super speedways. Which one troubles you the most? How do you reconcile that with the need for being in control?

[A] AL, JR.: Call it the law of averages---it's gonna get you. You're racing wheel to wheel, and pretty soon you're gonna hit one of those wheels, whatever the circumstances. You live with it and hope it doesn't happen, at the same time doing everything in your ability to keep it from happening. But that's what's most dangerous about everyday driving, too---the other guy hitting you. You have to drive defensively. And you're on guard with everybody. As much as I trust Dad, we may be going into a corner and his car may not be working as well as mine. So you really have to stay on your toes with everyone.

10.

[Q] Playboy: What's that special quality in race drivers---talent, anticipation, judgment?

[A] AL, SR.: It's something you can't teach. It's the ability to know what's going on around you and, simultaneously, to know where you're at. It's a form of concentration, I suppose---the ability to take things in.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Font said of Indy, "The cars are going too fast. You're going down the straightaway at over 200 mph, and if something happens in front of you, boy, school's out." Are the cars going too fast? Has technology eclipsed the capabilities of even the best drivers?

[A] AL, SR.: In 1960, Parnelli Jones ran 150 mph at the speedway. Now we're at 215. The race track has stayed the same, there's the same banking, yet the cars are safer and easier to drive today than five years ago. If we were to jump from today's race car into Parnelli's 150-mph front-engine dinosaur, it'd scare you so bad, you'd be saying, "I don't know how he did it."

[A] AL, JR.: I can't tell the difference between 180 and 210.

12.

[Q] Playboy: How phenomenal was Danny Sullivan's recovering from his spin at Indy last year, regaining control at 200 mph and going on to win?

[A] AL, JR.: How many times have you seen that done? That's how phenomenal it was, a real fluke. And Sully would sit here and tell you the same thing.

13.

[Q] Playboy: What does the word speed mean to you?

[A] AL, JR.: The only time I've ever felt I was going too fast was when I was sliding sideways at the Michigan 500 in '84---200 mph. I was looking out the window, so to speak, and I was totally out of control. When you're driving well, however, things come up in slow motion; you're ahead of the car. That's when a race driver is an artist. He's playing an instrument, and it's a very slow, smooth song. Gentle is another word I'd use for it, because when you make the car work for you, the two of you come together and work as one. However, an Indy car will bite you faster than any other race car. You're working with 700-plus horsepower that comes on with a bang, and it'll just whammo you into the fence---and I mean instantly.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Then explain your love for that car.

[A] AL, JR.: It's the challenge of not letting it bite you. An Indy car is a "he" that will flatten your ass as fast as you can sit in it. Speed is not why I race. The attraction of an Indy car is that it places such a demand on your judgment and skill. Even before I get into one of those things, I'll always pause to think, and I never go fast the first hour of a practice session. I'll build up to it every time, because the cars demand real respect.

15.

[Q] Playboy: Could and average person get into one and drive it around the Indy Speed way, even with an empty track and the discipline to go slowly?

[A] Al, Jr.: He'd have a hard time just getting it out of the pit without stalling the engine. But otherwise, it's going to scare him, the average guy who's telling himself, "Well, let's see what this thing will do." He'd be in the fence with a broken leg, fast. Trying to hook up that 700-odd horsepower, he'd bust the rear tires loose, and whammo. You've got to respect these cars to the point where you're thinking, If I don't do it right, I die.

16.

[Q] Playboy: And so, leaving aside goals of national championships, money and fame, you couldn't be just as happy exploring your limits in a Corvette, say, at 125 mph?

[A] Al, Jr: No. Because you need the threat, and 125 mph is no big thing for me. Rutherford tells a story about a friend asking him to drive his new 308 Ferrari: The guy's just plunked down 50 or 60 grand, he's in awe of the car, Johnny gets in and takes it to the limit, they come back and get out, and all Johnny says is, "Nice car." It was no big deal for him, see, and the same applies here: The challenge is going past the limit and being able to survive.

17.

[Q] Playboy: Do everyday drivers scare you?

[A] Al, Sr.: I'm more comfortable on a race track than on the street. For most people, driving is just a way of getting from point A to point B, and they don't realize what their machine can do. After an accident, they'll inevitably turn around and say, "Gee, I didn't know these things hit so hard."

[A] Al, Jr.: Besides, you don't know what they're thinking or doing. Not to mention those people who drive listening to their Walkmans; they can't hear an ambulance or a fire truck, let alone something going wrong with their own car. Sure they scare me. Their reaction in an emergency is often very, very bad.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Do you always buckle up, even when you're driving around the corner? The truth now.

[A] Al, Jr.: I endorse seat belts 200 percent. I won't let anybody ride in my car unless he buckles up. Why? Because you wouldn't dream of driving a race car without fastening your belts, so if anything, there's even more reason to use them on the street.

[A] Al, Sr.: I'm not sure about air bags, because they're new and unproved, but I've had some bad, bad crashes, and if it weren't for seat belts, I wouldn't be here today. Like Al says, it's inconceivable to get into a race car and not buckle up.

19.

[Q] Playboy: How much do you dislike being a passenger? And when it's just the two of you, who drives?

[A] Al, Jr.: If it's Dad's car, he drives; if it's mine, I do. But, yes, I'm nervous about being a passenger. Usually, I'll live with it until whoever is driving starts doing things I don't like; then I'll flat-out say something.

20.

[Q] Playboy: The latest addition to the Unser clan is three-year-old Al III, dubbed Mini Al. Is he being programed to be a race driver, too? Wouldn't you like to have an accountant, an architect, something other than another racer in the family?

[A] Al, Jr.: I don't want to say programed. He's already got a go-cart, and I'm going to go through the same motions Dad put me through; but if he doesn't want it, then I'll tell him the same thing I was told: "Whatever you do, do it the best you can." I'll be damned if my boy's going to be a bum on the street. The O'Neal family, Ryan and his boy; Paul Newman's son dying of a drug overdose; the Kennedy kids---that's heavy family pressure. There is no family pressure in this family.