North American Motorsports Heroes: 1971 Indianapolis 500 Centennial Moment with Al Unser Sr

About North American Motorsports Heroes

When you look over all of this information about a time period in racing when I believe that North America and North American Driver's were at the top of the world food chain when it came to automobile racing.

In one of the time periods, a driver had to compete not only on asphalt oval high speed tracks but also on dirt oval tracks to win a championship.

Where in the early 60s there were more dirt races then there were paved its started to make a turn and by 1962 you saw 5 dirt and 5 paved. Then in the mid 60s road courses were introduced and went from one in 1965 too 7 or 8 by the close of the 60s. In this same time period you saw 1/2 as many dirt races as paved now and now 3x as many races over all. 28 in 1969 and 24 in 1970 compared to 12 in 1960.

The second time period in this same series was in the late 1970 when names like Ongais, Johncock, Sneva, Mears, Rutherford and then there was the tried and true names the were from the 1^st period of Andretti, Foyt and maybe the greats name in the series ever, “The Unsers”

I was luck enough to know and have a personal relationship with a man that not only lived both of these time periods but was also the one who got me hooked in auto racing as well as himself personal was there 1^st hand for most of this time period with the names of Unser and Ongais. His name is Jimmy Dilamartier and this is his story...thru his eyes !!

The Series

American Championship car racing, also known as Indy Car racing, is a genre of professional-level automobile racing based in the United States and North America. As of 2014, the top-level American open wheel racing championship is sanctioned by IndyCar.

Competitive events for professional-level, single-seat open-wheel race cars have been contested under the auspices of several different sanctioning bodies dating back to about 1902. A season-long, points-based, National Championship of drivers has been officially recognized in 1905, 1916, and since 1920. The Indianapolis 500, which itself debuted in 1911, is the marquee event of Indy Car racing.

The open-wheeled, winged, single-seater cars have generally been similar to those in Formula One, though there are important differences. Due to the fame of the Indianapolis 500, the cars that would typically compete in U.S. Championship car racing are often called Indy Cars (or IndyCar, Indycar); these cars were popularized during the rising popularity of CART PPG Indy Car World Series racing in the early 1990s.

There have been 7 Sanctioning Bodies for this series dating back to 1904:

1904-1955 AAA American Automobile Association

1956-1978 USAC United States Auto Club – Hulman Family

1979-1981 SCCA/CART & USAC Championship Auto Racing

1982-1995 CART & USAC Stability returned

1996-2003 CART & IRL Hulmans grandson Tony George starts IRL

2004-2007 IRL & CCWS

2008- Indycar - IRL absorbed CCWS creating IndyCar Series

The Tracks

Indy car racing was dominated by North American drivers until the 1990s, which saw incursions from European and South American drivers. This led to Tony George forming the IRL in order to promote American drivers. Conversely, American drivers have never found great success in Formula One since the 1970s, the last drivers' champion and race winner was Mario Andretti.

In 1909 a point-to-point race from Los Angeles to Phoenix was included in the championship.

From 1915 to 1931 board tracks were frequently used for championship races, however safety concerns and cost of maintenance, especially with the onset of the Great Depression, and nearly all were demolished in the 1930s.

Until 1970 the championship frequently raced on dirt and clay tracks, but all such tracks were removed permanently by USAC before the 1971 season.

Airport runways have also been used to create temporary circuits. The most notable used for open wheel racing was the Cleveland Grand Prix at Burke Lakefront Airport. St. Pete and Edmonton also utilize airport runways for parts of the course, however, they lead back to streets for the rest of the lap.

The Drivers

The driver with the most championship titles and race wins is A. J. Foyt. From 1959 to 1981 Foyt won 67 USAC championship races and seven USAC titles.
Ralph DePalma is credited with the most AAA-sanctioned victories (25).
Michael Andretti has won the most CART/Champ Car-sanctioned races (42).
Scott Dixon has the most IRL-sanctioned wins (32).
Mario Andretti is the most successful driver born outside the United States with 52 wins and 4 titles.
France's Sebastien Bourdais is the most successful non-U.S. citizen (31 wins, 4 titles).
Danica Patrick is the only woman to ever win a National Championship-level open wheel race (Motegi, 2008). Sarah Fisher was the first female driver to win a pole position (Kentucky, 2002).
Four drivers have held the crowns of CART Champion and Formula One World Driving Champion.
Six other drivers have won both a National Championship race as well as at least one Formula One Grand Prix (except the Indianapolis 500 when it was part of the World Driver's Championship). They are as follows:

Indianapolis 500 and 'The Split'

From its inception in 1911, to creation of the Indy Racing League in 1996, the Indianapolis 500 was a round of the National Championship. The exceptions are the 1981 and 1982 races, which were removed from the CART championship for political reasons by the USAC. However, when the race still attracted all of the regular teams despite its lack of championship status USAC relented and allowed CART to run at Indianapolis.

Winning the Indianapolis 500 has always had at least an equal profile with the winning the National Championship, although direct comparisons are difficult as many of the National Champions also won the Indy 500. 1993 is a good example of a year when the winners of each title received the same amount of attention. That year former Formula One champion Emerson Fittipaldi won the 500 but the current F1 champion Nigel Mansell won the National Championship, becoming the only driver to win both titles consecutively.

The creation of the IRL in 1996 with the Indianapolis 500 as its centerpiece race removed the race from the existing National Championship. This of course was a hugely controversial move in racing circles, with opinions at the time ranging from praise to ridicule—in 2004 the US Sports Illustrated magazine named the IRL's formation as one of the 'Ten Dumbest Moments in Sports'.[9] This assessment was based on the notable decline in the number of television viewers, car entries and estimated grandstand ticket sales (the Speedway does not officially announce sales figures), since the impasse began in 1996.

By late 2007, both entities had fallen far behind NASCAR in popularity, participants, and media coverage. Several top drivers, including Americans A. J. Allmendinger and Sam Hornish, Jr. and 2007 IRL Champion Dario Franchitti, had switched to or were seriously contemplating a switch to stock cars. Neither the Champ Car World Series nor the Indy Racing League seemed to have an edge over the other in terms of credibility or prestige. Neither series had more than 20 cars outside of Indianapolis (compared with 25–28 as late as 2001), so a merger was the only logical move.

On February 22, 2008, both series announced the acquisition of Champ Car assets by IRL founder and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George, effectively rolling the former series into the latter, and reuniting American open wheel racing under IndyCar Series control.

Fatalities in Competition

Ted Horn, champion in 1946-1947-1948, died after crashing at the DuQuoin dirt track in late 1948.
Defending Indianapolis 500 winners Floyd Roberts and Bill Vukovich were killed during the 1939 and 1955 Indy 500s respectively.
1951 and 1958 champion Tony Bettenhausen was killed in a crash at Indianapolis in May 1961.
Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed during the 1964 Indianapolis 500.
Art Pollard (qualifying) and Swede Savage (race) died of injuries suffered during the 1973 Indianapolis 500.
Gordon Smiley was killed while attempting to qualify for the 1982 Indianapolis 500.
1996 Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter Scott Brayton was killed May 17, 1996 during a practice session for the Indianapolis 500.
Greg Moore died after an October 31, 1999 crash in the Marlboro 500 at Fontana.
Dan Wheldon died after a 15-car pile-up on the 11th lap of the IZOD IndyCar World Championships at Las Vegas on October 16, 2011.

North American Motorsports Heroes

About North American Motorsports Heroes

Jim Dilamarter

Jim in the 1971 Indy 500

Johnny Lighting Special back-to-back 500s

Friday, March 28, 2014

1971 Indianapolis 500 Centennial Moment with Al Unser Sr

No comments:

Post a Comment