Book Review: Al Unser, Jr., A Checkered Past as told to Jade Gurss

Al Unser Jr. comes from a racing dynasty. His grandfather and great uncles were early competitors at the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb. His father (Al Sr.) and his uncle Bobby Unser were competitors in USAC, CART, and IndyCar. The book chronicles both his racing achievements as well as his descent into addiction.
 
At age nine, he began participating in racing. Even at the go-kart level, his natural ability was obvious. His dad, who won four Indianapolis 500s, believed he could become a very successful race car driver. By the time he was 19, Al was participating in Indy car and he ran his first Indianapolis 500 at age 21.
 
The seeds of his destruction were sown early in his life. His parents divorced when he was nine and he alternated living with his mother and his father. When living with his mother who provided little structure while his father was the disciplinarian. Al began skipping school in the ninth grade and he and his two sisters would go and get stoned on marijuana.
 
When his sister, Debbie, died in a dune buggy accident, Al eased the pain by turning to drugs. It was a pattern that would continue and escalate. When he was depressed or upset, he turned to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. He also turned to drugs to celebrate.
 
In his third year of racing in CART, Al suffered what could have been a career ending injury at Road America. The race car hit a guardrail and his right ankle was broken which was surgically repaired. He was given morphine for the pain which caused hallucinations and then Vicodin, another opioid. Before he raced again, he weaned himself off of all pain killers but he continued smoking pot and with a brief exception in 1988, he continued to do so throughout his racing career.
 
Al Jr. came very close to winning the Indianapolis 500 in 1989. Leading on the last lap, he crashed and finished second. The next year, he won the CART championship. Despite his success on the racetrack, his personal life was in turmoil. His marriage to Shelley was falling apart and the couple spent much of their free time drinking, using cocaine and marijuana. While Al Jr. was making good money, the drugs combined with poor financial advice left the couple without a nest egg. It was also in 1990 that he and Shelley separated only to find out that he couldn’t stand the loneliness of being single and they reconciled only to start the cycle over.
 
In 1992 driving for Rick Galles, Al Jr. was convinced that he didn’t have a prayer of winning the Indianapolis 500. Galles had built his own chassis (the Galmer) with the hope of being like Roger Penske and having customers for the car. He needed Al Jr. to win the Indianapolis 500 to make this dream come true but the team struggled with the car’s setup. After qualifying tenth, his only hope was that the weather would be very hot. When dawn broke, it was the coldest day in Indianapolis 500 history which negatively impacted many of the teams. With 25 laps remaining, Al Jr. had driven the car to second place. With eleven laps to go, there were only 12 cars remaining in the race and he took the lead when Michael Andretti’s fuel pump failed. There was another yellow flag and when the green flag came out on lap 194, he raced with Scott Goodyear for the checkered flag. He held on to win by 0.043 of a second. Despite his happiness at winning the race, Al Jr. was miserable.
 
In 1993, he got the call from Team Penske to join Paul Tracy and Emerson Fittipaldi for the 1994 season. Penske had engaged  Ilmor Engineering to secretly build a special V-8 engine to take advantage of a loophole in the regulations and give the team a huge horsepower advantage.
 
The first testing of the 1994 Penske chassis was a rude awakening when he arrived late. The team didn’t tolerate their drivers being late.  He quickly learned the team would tell him what to do and when to do it. He began testing the new engine in Pennsylvania, in the middle of the winter wearing a snowsuit. They tested the special engine at the Michigan Speedway on IMS’s opening day and the engine lasted all 500 miles.  For Penske, the engine was a gamble worth taking and he was rewarded when Al Jr. won the Indianapolis 500. While the other Penske drivers also had the special engine. Tracy’s car dropped out of the race about halfway through with a blown turbocharger while Fittipaldi crashed on lap 185.
 
Using the regular engine for the remainder of the season, Team Penske was the dominant team in 1994 with Al Jr. winning eight races, Tracy three and Fittipaldi one. Al Jr. celebrated his victories and the championship by doing more drugs and drinking. The increase in the substance abuse became apparent to everyone and some of his friends planned to do an intervention after the 1995 Long Beach race. When Al Jr. won the race, the intervention became a party. It was on to Indianapolis and despite hours of work and testing, Team Penske didn’t make the cut during qualifying. The remainder of the season was much better for the team as they returned to winning and Al Jr. finished second in the points championship.
 
Just as the 1996 season was starting, Al Jr.’s wife, Shelley, filed for divorce. Banned from his home, Al Jr. moved in with his dad. Totally off liquor for the first time, he had alcoholic tremors. He asked for his dad’s help who quickly found him a spot in rehab. The rehab didn’t last long. During the 1996 and 1997 seasons, Al Jr. didn’t win a race. At the end of the 1997 season, Al Jr. decided to end his relationship with Shelley (they had reconciled) and sued for divorce. She convinced a judge that she and their children were in danger and the judge issued a restraining order.
 
For the 1999 season, Team Penske was going to be a single car team. In the season opener, Al Jr. slammed into the wall breaking his right ankle and pulling tendons in his left knee. He was out of the race car for six weeks. In the middle of the season, he was summoned to Penske headquarters in Detroit where he was told they were aware of rumors of his drug abuse. When a urinalysis came back positive for marijuana, Penske gave him thirty days to get clean. Shortly thereafter, he got stoned and then he went cold turkey. Instead, he returned to drinking heavily. He also used cocaine shortly before the end of the thirty days. After testing positive on the next drug test, Penske’s medical staff confronted him and told him that he was a drug addict. It was the first time that anyone had ever said that to him. The next day, Penske announced the drivers for 2000 and it didn’t include Al Jr. Penske encouraged Al Jr. to seek professional help.
 
Despite having been fired from Team Penske, Al Jr. drove for the Galles team in 2000 and 2001. His life continued to spin out of control. He got arrested for domestic violence after which, journalist Robin Miller, published a story about Al Jr.’s drug use and heavy drinking. Al Jr. again entered rehab. His sobriety lasted sixty-eight days. For the 2002 and 2003 seasons, he was with Team Kelley where he won his last IndyCar race.
 
With no racing teams calling, Al Jr. was at home in New Mexico. Drinking heavily, he drove a four-wheeler down a steep hill. The four-wheeler cartwheeled and Al Jr. broke his pelvis. Once again, his dad stepped in and sent him to rehab which lasted three days. He returned to the rehab center after going on a bender in September. This time he stayed for 27 days. It didn’t make a difference. As soon as he was out of rehab, he returned to drinking. Despite his well-known issues, he continued to pick up an occasional ride. Before the 2007 Indianapolis 500, he was driving home when he ran another car off the highway. He faced multiple charges including hit and run and DUI to which he pleaded no contest.
 
He was clocked going about 110 mph in Albuquerque in October 2011 and was arrested for reckless driving while intoxicated. His AA sponsor convinced him to again enter rehab. After rehab, he was seeing a psychiatrist. Al Jr. told him he was suffering from depression and needed some drugs. The psychiatrist told him that while he was depressed, he did not suffer from clinical depression and refused to provide him the pills. That was when he hit rock bottom.
 
While he still had an occasional drink, he was living paycheck to paycheck which kept the drinking under control until his ex-wife, Shelley died. He was working for a race team headed by Brian Barnhart and Mike Harding who confronted him about his drinking and said that if he didn’t stop, he would be fired. He then checked into a hospital in Indianapolis. After a race in 2018, Al Jr. celebrated by having a drink and the cycle started to repeat. He was pulled over for DUI, among other things and pleaded guilty. After Michael Andretti asked him “Do you know what it means to be spiritually fit?” he became actively involved in his church. Today, he is involved with Formula 4 racing and his life is centered in Jesus.
My publisher, McFarland & Company, is offering a holiday sale on all titles. This year, they are offering a 25% discount for all books on their website through the holiday season. Here is the link to the McFarland website https://mcfarlandbooks.com/holiday22/. 
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