NOTES / GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH : This Time, Unser the Hit-and-Run Victim

It was almost a dead ringer for the collision in 1989 that allowed Al Unser Jr. to win his second consecutive Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

This time, though, Little Al was on the wrong end of the late-race bump, and instead of winning his fifth consecutive race here, he finished fourth.

In ‘89, Mario Andretti was leading when Unser bumped him from behind in the hairpin, knocking the Andretti patriarch out of the race, which Unser won.

That incident caused hard feelings between America’s premiere racing families--Mario did not take at all kindly to it--but things eventually were smoothed over and racing life went on.

Sunday, it was Unser leading late in the going--all the Andrettis had long since departed--when he, second-running Danny Sullivan and hard-challenging Bobby Rahal all caught up to slower running Hiro Matsushita at Turn 6, the end of the back straightaway.

With racing room scarce, Sullivan bumped Unser, continued through the turn and on to the victory, his first since 1990. Unser spun and, although he was able to get going again, the race that had been his for the taking had been taken by his Galles-Kraco teammate, of all people.

So was he furious?

Only at the mention of the ’89 incident.

“Don’t even bring up Mario,” he snapped, leaving the world to wonder about his thoughts on the similarity of the occurrences.

Later he calmly detailed his account of Sunday’s incident.

“I was trying to protect my (racing) line,” he said. “There was traffic, and I knew (Sullivan and Rahal) got a run on me and it got crowded.”

Still, he said, he didn’t know what hit him.

“I didn’t see anybody,” he said. “They were behind me. I didn’t know who hit me. I kind of figured it was Danny because I was sure he was protecting his line, too.

“Matsushita let the whole train catch us and, really, all I can say is that’s racing.

“The way the course is laid out, what I knew was going to happen happened. . . . I knew that the race was going to be all together. I was saying earlier that the way the course is laid out (this year), it’s a very, very simple race track. When you have simple race tracks, it’s hard to get an advantage over anybody else, and so I knew you were going to be able to throw a blanket over the top two or three.

“And I was halfway right. (Early leader Michael Andretti, who was taken out by a broken second gear) was all by himself and we were running for second there. And then Michael had his problem, and then it was for the lead.”

Nor did he feel any animosity toward Sullivan.

“I know Danny, and he’s just not the kind of man who would do that on purpose,” he said.

“It was a great race, and I hope the fans loved it, ‘cause I haven’t been in a race like this since I lost to Michael (here) in ’86. Half of me is disappointed that I lost the race. But then we have a motto around the shop, and that is that we win the race and we hit the wall. And today, half of us hit the wall and half of us won the race.”

Unser said, however, that the idea of a collision with his teammate never occurred to him, even though they had been racing closely for much of the race.

“You never think about that,” he said. “You think about hitting your line and making your car work for you and getting away from your competitor. Danny is a great competitor, and he wants to win the race just as bad as I do.

“As far as any hard feelings, no, there ain’t none. What we need to do is work harder so we don’t let him get as close to me. It’s that simple.

“It’s the same thing I said at the (Indianapolis) Speedway in ’89 (when he lost the 500 after tangling with Emerson Fittipaldi on the second-from-last lap). The same circumstances--traffic slowed me down--Emmo got a run on me going into the corner, you run out of racing room and one guy goes.

“If I’d had my car working better that day he wouldn’t have got close enough in traffic to screw me up. Same way today.”

Frenchman Franck Freon and former Indy car driver Mark Dismore won Sunday’s supporting races.

Freon, a series veteran, started on the pole and led all the way in the 47-lap race for his first victory in the Buick-powered Indy Lights. Dismore, a former Toyota Atlantic champion who was badly injured in a crash before last season’s Indy 500, won the 38-lap event for the Toyota-powered open wheelers.

Freon turned back an early bid by Robbie Buhl of Grosse Pointe, Mich., then took advantage of traffic late in the race to distance himself from the pack in the Indy Lights. He averaged 85.992 m.p.h.

Robbie Groff of Los Angeles passed Buhl for second on the 40th lap and Buhl, whose car developed a handling problem, had to settle for third. Brazilian Marco Greco was fourth, followed by Sandy Brody of Boca Raton, Fla.

Dismore, of Greenfield, Ind., moved into the lead on Lap 9 of the Toyota Atlantic race and stayed there, winning comfortably by nearly five seconds. He averaged 91.519 m.p.h. Jamie Galles of Albuquerque, N.M., son of Rick Galles, owner of Al Unser Jr.’s Indy car, finished second, and Chris Smith of Palos Verdes Estates was third.