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| | Saturday, January 29 | |||||
| LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- When Al Unser Jr. brought his crippled race car into the pit area after dropping out of Saturday's Delphi Indy 200 at Walt Disney World, he threw up his hands, tossed the steering wheel and stomped his foot in
disgust.
"I was upset because I've gone another race without a win,"
Unser said. "It was a good weekend, but we didn't get to qualify
and didn't get enough laps to run in practice. It's a shame that
is the way it was."
Dropping out of races because of mechanical problems was all too
familiar to Unser in CART the past few seasons. He had hoped a
switch to the IRL in 2000 would signal a fresh start.
But in Saturday's race, the Oldsmobile Aurora engine in his Indy car conked out, and Unser was beginning to feel the same sinking feeling he felt in CART.
"I hope this doesn't follow me over here," he said. "Franz Weiss does a fantastic job building my engines and this is the first one that let go on me. I just don't know, it was one of those things. Franz won't let these things happen at all. "I've raced now, I've gotten it over with, everyone knows we are here and I'm one of the ones to contend with for the title and we'll go from there." Unser started 24th and finished 25th in his IRL debut. But before he dropped out of the race, Unser was running in ninth place. "The car was working really good, we took a big gamble and set the thing up to run on Friday, but we didn't get any practice either Friday or Saturday," he said. "We ended up going out there with a big gamble. I changed all four corners of the car. Allan Mertens (his engineer) and myself and he hit it right. I was really proud of what he did. The car was working well. "All in all, the car was handling really well. We were able to move up. It was very encouraging to get out there and pass some cars and get up through the field." Unser said he had the most fun passing cars in the race -- something he didn't have much of an opportunity to do in CART the past few years because of the package he was running at the time. "I knew all I needed was some equal stuff," he said. "I just haven't had an equal package over the past three or four years and it showed. The way the rules are, it is very equal in the IRL and I felt good about it." Unser said he was confident he would have been in the top five over the final 100 laps and set to battle the leaders of the win. However, his hopes went up in a puff of engine smoke. "I was trying to get through traffic as quick as I could because I didn't want to go down a lap, and then once I was up with the lead pack, I would settle down and take it to the end," he said. "It was just a shame we never got there." Unser said it would take a few races to learn the IRL drivers. After one race, he said he was impressed with the competition. "They are smooth, they are competitive, and they are racers," he said. "The more time I spend with them, the more I will get used to them, the more they will get used to me, and we will have some good races. I had some great laps out there with Eddie Cheever, and racing my cousin, Robby (Unser), was really good. "The drivers in the IRL are better racers than they are given credit for, no doubt about it. They know these cars, the teams are real good and the competition is very, very close. I look forward to getting out there and getting with them." | AUDIO/VIDEO   Al Unser Jr talks about switching to the IRL circuit.wav: 117 k RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6  | |||||