Drivers who stood up to be counted

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by AGD

Speaking of Penske, perhaps Al Unser's 1987 Indy 500 win has to count up there too. It wasn't a good month of May for Penske's usually dominant bunch. Penske had returned to using in-house chassis throughout the team after running Marches before and the new cars weren't so good. Penske ate the humble pie and dumped the in-house cars for year old Marches (don't ask me what took Roger so long to eat the humble pie in 1995, but that's a different story). On top of that, that was the first year of widespread use of the Ilmor (Chevrolet) engines that Penske was involved in. The Ilmor powered Marches for regular Penske drivers Sullivan and Mears proved to not be reliable during the race.

Penske had released Big Al during the off-season despite winning the CART Championship in 1985 for Penske and being the test pilot for the Penske-Ilmor combo in 1986. Roger had a deal to run Danny Ongais in a 3rd Penske car, but Ongais had a practice crash and injured himself. Roger decided to bring back Big Al, who was still unsigned, and put him in an old March with a Cosworth DFX engine. I think the car was a show car in a hotel lobby somewhere before getting pressed into racing action. Anyway, that was the race where Mario Andretti dominated until his car failed late and Roberto Guerrero had his clutch problems. Big Al won the race in improbable style and joined the 4 time winner's club. It was one of the most captivating stories in Indianapolis 500 history and it happened with a driver Penske had just fired basically and smartly picked back up at the last second. The win also covered up the fact that Penske's new car and engines were not ready for primetime. Everybody forgot about that and marveled about how Roger won Indianapolis again, but this time with an old chassis, an old engine, and an old driver. By 1988, Roger's chassis and engines were ready to kick butt.

The car sits in Cummins' Corporate Office Building in Downtown Columbus, Indiana. (they sponsored the car)

As far as Al Snr is concerned, considering the history of Menards, I would be appreciative of 3rd place at '92 Indy.

Very attritional race where everyone was an afterthought to Michael Andretti's domination until his car inexplicably broke late. Big Al ended up half a lap down to the Little Al/Goodyear finish. Considering his age though at the time, awesome ride.

Still, he had a great race that day and he had to be over the moon after the race about his performance and what Little Al did.

Contrast it with Mario who injured himself in a crash during the race, his son Jeff was injured in a crash as well, and Mario in a hospital bed at Methodist hearing Michael lose a dominating lead with 10 laps to go, and Mario said that day was the worst day of his life.

Some others:

-Vitor Meira in the 2006 IRL season. He was reeling off 2nds and 3rds where it was an open question on whether Panther Racing would make the next race due to finances as in the team would be closed. He finished that year 5th in the standings ahead of people like Kanaan and Franchitti.

-Maybe not Senna in the '90s. But Senna's run with Toleman, especially the race where he was 2nd to Prost in the rain at Monaco. Toleman would be the equivalent of what in F1 now, Caterham? Williams?

-Random Indy 500 runs: one year Gary Bettenhausen per Donald Davidson apparently his car was pretty bad and he was starting way back. Gary told his wife pre-race "don't you and the kids go too far away, let me go out and when this piece of sh*t breaks we'll get out of here fast". Well the car never broke, Gary wound up finishing 3rd, and post-race Donald went to see him and Gary was lying down on the garage floor with his driver suit off and sweat just pouring off of him.

Buddy Lazier winning Indy with a broken back.

I'll never forget Max Papis in the final 2 hours of the Daytona 24 Hours one year getting 3.5 of 4 laps back on a sick Riley & Scott doing qualifying speed lap after qualifying speed lap.

[formerf1champ]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

-Random Indy 500 runs: one year Gary Bettenhausen per Donald Davidson apparently his car was pretty bad and he was starting way back. Gary told his wife pre-race "don't you and the kids go too far away, let me go out and when this piece of sh*t breaks we'll get out of here fast". Well the car never broke, Gary wound up finishing 3rd, and post-race Donald went to see him and Gary was lying down on the garage floor with his driver suit off and sweat just pouring off of him.

I've seen extended highlights of that race on YT. Was that the one where Bettenhausen had the 4th placed runner (Johncock?) right under his wing for the last part of that race? When I was watching the clip, the camera shot was focussing on Al Snr or Rutherford (whichever one it was), but I was paying attention to the fore/background seeing 3rd/4th having a monster battle. That looked pretty intense, no wonder he was knackered!

The story also reminds me of the story of Mansell's '89 Brazilian GP win, which there are similarities to.

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

Buddy Lazier winning Indy with a broken back.

I remember the days when Lazier was just a no name who ran at the back of the field. The feeling of stunned surprise stayed with me the whole day at the realisation he won Indy (even if it wasn't a real one!). Next, you'll be telling me about the time Eddie Cheever won a race...

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by formerf1champ

Next, you'll be telling me about the time Eddie Cheever won a race...

The most accomplished American driver in Formula One in the last 30 years? There's a lot of good F1 drivers out there that didn't get 9 podiums in Grand Prix. And it's hardly like he was uncompetitive when you look at his CART record racing for Ganassi before Ganassi was a top team.

I remember the days when Lazier was just a no name who ran at the back of the field. The feeling of stunned surprise stayed with me the whole day at the realisation he won Indy (even if it wasn't a real one!).

Well when you can only afford crap cars, you're not exactly going to win. Geez, you have "F1" in your user name, so that means you follow the series and should know that. He was racing a 2-year-old Lola with the ticking time bomb Buick engine for Leader Cards in 1993 for example.

(One thing I very clearly remember about old CART was the class structure, there were haves and there were have nots, and the difference between the two was much wider than the difference between Lotus and Honda/Chevy in this year's Indycar series. It was more like the difference between McLaren and HRT in modern F1. You look at some old race footage on Youtube, take a look at how far back some of the qualifying times were once you get to say 10th or so.)

The man was good at Indy. I was at the 2005 race and he took a worthless POS Chevy engine to 5th place in a one-off drive for Panther. Looking at his other results he got 4th in 1997, 2nd behind Cheever in 1998, and 2nd behind Montoya in 2000. Honestly though, if he crashes in 1996 during the 500 with his existing back injury, he could've easily been paralyzed. So you have that hanging over your head and you go out and win the race? That takes balls. Other guys that have done something comparable to that: Rick Mears when he went to the hospital in a bad accident and came back the next day to set pole speed.

[formerf1champ]

Flyin Ryan, I don't know if you were offended with my post or wanting to give me a history lesson but, I wasn't having a crack at Lazier. Instead, I was recalling my experience when I first heard that it was Buddy who won Indy.

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

Well when you can only afford crap cars, you're not exactly going to win. Geez, you have "F1" in your user name, so that means you follow the series and should know that.

"formerf1champ" is just a username. I like it as a reference "Former F1 champ Nigel Mansell said..."

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

He was racing a 2-year-old Lola with the ticking time bomb Buick engine for Leader Cards in 1993 for example.

I'm not saying he's not a good driver. It was weird knowing a guy who spent all of his career "racing" at the deep back of the field had just won Indy.

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

(One thing I very clearly remember about old CART was the class structure, there were haves and there were have nots, and the difference between the two was much wider...

I get what you're saying. You could break up early,mid 90s CART into 3 tiers. Tier 1 - Title contenders, regular race winners (Unser, Andretti). Tier 2 - Not quite good enough, possible winners, maybe on their way up or down (Goodyear, Johansson, Boesel)Tier 3- Under no circumstance, will a meaningful result be possible (Greco, Matsu****a and Lazier)

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

The man was good at Indy. I was at the 2005 race and he took a worthless POS Chevy engine to 5th place in a one-off drive for Panther. Looking at his other results he got 4th in 1997, 2nd behind Cheever in 1998, and 2nd behind Montoya in 2000.

I remember '00 Indy. I was hoping he'd run down Montoya, since I didn't want Montoya to get up. '05 was an excellent performance, only equalled by Wheldon. A shame he didn't get the deserved attention, because he wasn't the winner or "female". You should've nominated Lazier on this thread for that performance.

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

Honestly though, if he crashes in 1996 during the 500 with his existing back injury, he could've easily been paralyzed. So you have that hanging over your head and you go out and win the race? That takes balls. Other guys that have done something comparable to that: Rick Mears when he went to the hospital in a bad accident and came back the next day to set pole speed.

That's two more nominations for this thread. Did you even know you were doing it?

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

The most accomplished American driver in Formula One in the last 30 years? There's a lot of good F1 drivers out there that didn't get 9 podiums in Grand Prix. And it's hardly like he was uncompetitive when you look at his CART record racing for Ganassi before Ganassi was a top team.

Hey, hang on a second. I have respect for American motorsport and it's history. But let's get real here "The most accomplished American driver in Formula One in the last 30 years" isn't really saying much. Cheever should've won, at least, one race with Ganassi, but he wasn't up to it. He was extremely stiff to miss out on Nazareth in 95, but still.

Can anyone believe, the auto censor came on for Hiro?

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

(One thing I very clearly remember about old CART was the class structure, there were haves and there were have nots, and the difference between the two was much wider than the difference between Lotus and Honda/Chevy in this year's Indycar series. It was more like the difference between McLaren and HRT in modern F1. You look at some old race footage on Youtube, take a look at how far back some of the qualifying times were once you get to say 10th or so.).

Staying a bit OT for a moment i'd like to respond to this passage Ryan.

The CART was a bit poor in depth in the late 80's early 90's but then went through a halcyon period from 1995-2001.

In that period many teams and drivers could win and the field was ultra competitive with top level North Americans, South Americans and European pedallers.

Zanardi once said it was like racing in 'a big F3000 series', which considering how close that formula was in Europe is no insult at all.

Anyone who achieved mutliple success in that era, or even managed to win more than a couple of races at a time was a real hero!