Unser Making Quiet Climb Up Northern Light Cup Standings

[MountaineerTom]

From indyracing.com

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Al Unser Jr. has had a quiet season in the Indy Racing Northern Light Series in 2001, but he has put himself in position to have his best finish in a series standings since he placed fourth in the final CART rundown in 1996.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Unser climbed from 11th to eighth in the standings by finishing a solid fourth, only 4.669 seconds behind winner Buddy Lazier, in the Belterra Indy 300 on Aug. 12 at Kentucky Speedway. Another good finish in the Gateway Indy 250 on Aug. 26 at Gateway International Raceway could put him in position to challenge fifth place in the standings over the final two races of the season.

Unser has 185 points and is only seven points behind seventh place Buzz Calkins. He trails Billy Boat by 64 points for sixth and Eliseo Salazar by 66 for fifth.

With a third-place and fourth-place finish in Unser’s last four races, is his season beginning to turn around?

“Boy, I hope so,” said Unser, 39, after accepting hugs and handshakes in the pits at Kentucky. “We thought that was the case down at Richmond (where he finished third June 30). Then we went up to the next race and had problems.”

That was at the new Kansas Speedway where an electrical problem ended his race in 20th place and down from 10th to 12th in the standings. The new Nashville Superspeedway was next, and Unser was caught in a multicar accident that eliminated him in 14th position.

Inconsistency has been the story of Unser’s season.

He kicked off the year poorly at Phoenix by finishing 23rd when his engine expired after 104 laps. He then rebounded with a sixth-place finish at Homestead, Fla., only to record a 17th-place finish at Atlanta and a disappointing 30th place in the Indianapolis 500. Unser left Indy 16th in the standings and has been clawing back ever since.

Unser brought home his No. 3 Galles Racing Starz SuperPak G Force/Oldsmobile/Firestone home eighth at Texas, 11th at Pikes Peak and third at Richmond, elevating him to 10th in the standings. Then it was another nosedive before pulling out of it at Kentucky.

“I sure would like to win one for Galles Racing and for my sponsors (Starz Super Pak, and TV Guide),” he said.

“We’d love to do that, but this series is extremely competitive, and you’ve got to have everything together and have it right in order to win.”

Unser has won once since joining the Indy Racing Northern Light Series at the start of the 2000 season. That victory at Las Vegas came in only his third race in the Indy Racing series, in April 2000.

The Galles team started the 2001 season with three drivers – Unser and rookies Didier Andre and Casey Mears. This proved to be a heavy burden on the team, which fielded just one car for Unser last season. Mears failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, the last race of his sponsorship package, and he was reluctantly released.

The true bright spot of the season came on the ¾-mile track at Richmond where Unser finished third, and his young French teammate, Andre, reached the finish line in fourth.

Unser credits part of the reason for the team’s improvement at Kentucky to previous experience on the 1.5-mile oval last year, which provide baseline car setup figures for this year. The team has done little testing this year, hurting its preparation for new tracks.

“We’re just trying as hard as we can,” Unser said. “This weekend, we had a successful weekend. We worked on the car, (engineer) Alan Mertens and myself, and it helped. There are some weekends (where) whatever you do, you just don’t do it right, and there are other weekends whatever you do, you do it right.

“We just seemed to get it working a little bit better. We’ve come off, what, two or three races that we never even tested at. This was one out of the last four that we actually raced at and had a weekend with. It showed right away, right when the car came off the trailer, that we were in the ballpark. Then we fine-tuned it from there.”

Gateway International Raceway may be new to the Northern Light Series, but not Unser. He raced there three times in CART driving for Roger Penske. But his finishes of 18th (1997), 19th (1998) and 12th (1999) weren’t memorable.

“A race is a race,” he said. “Unless you win it, you leave in sorrow.”

And that’s why he looks at defending Northern Light Series champion Buddy Lazier, who has won four of the last five races, with a touch of envy. Unser can recall when a season went that way for him. In 1990, he won races at Long Beach, Milwaukee, Toronto, Michigan, Denver and Vancouver to capture the CART championship.

“When you’re hot, you’re hot,” he said.

“I was close enough to see Robbie Buhl definitely was giving (Lazier) a run for his money. And then it was bad for Robbie to drop out the way he did (out of fuel). That’s the way racing goes. When everything goes your way, everything goes you way.”

And Unser would like everything to go his way at Gateway.