Little Al is stuck in big dry spell

Friday, Aug. 15, 1997 | 9:26 a.m.

Al Unser Jr. is too professional to start celebrating a victory before reaching the checkered flag.

But he was thinking about what a win would mean to him and the Penske team when his engine failed 100 yards from the final turn on Road America's four-mile road course in Elk hart Lake, Wis.

A stunned Unser was still coasting to a halt when Michael Andretti shot past on his way to victory in last year's Texaco-Havoline 200.

Unser, a second-generation Indy-car star, has 31 CART victories, including two in the Indianapolis 500. But the Road America race was the closest he had come to a victory since spraying the winner's champagne in September 1995 at Vancouver.

"That was a killer," said Unser, who will try and turn things around for himself and Marlboro Team Penske this weekend at Road America. "We led 25 of the 50 laps in that race, and all we had to do was finish.

"But the same thing happens to everybody. Michael has lost them like that, too. And I've won them when somebody else broke. It all evens out in the end."

Still, the losing streak now is 30 races for Unser, whose teammate Paul Tracy also has been struggling recently after winning three straight races early in the PPG CART World Series season.

"There isn't any one reason for this winless streak," Unser, 36, said. "It's a combination of many things.

"Our cars aren't working that well right now. The level of competition in the CART series is stronger than it's ever been. I also haven't finished seven of the 13 races we've run this year, six because of mechanical failures."

The latest non-finish came last week at Mid-Ohio, where an engine failure relegated him to a 22nd-place finish.

"We're all doing the best we can and we're not giving up," Unser said. "I'm more frustrated than anyone. It seems that everyone is trying to find one thing to blame it on."

For some people, that one thing is the driver.

As the losing streak has increased, there have been unfounded rumors of a drinking problem and also talk that Unser wants to drive in the Indy 500 -- now an Indy Racing League event -- so badly that he'd leave the elite Penske team for an IRL ride.

"Because I drive for the top car owner (Roger Penske) and one of the best sponsors in the business, people feel that I should be out there winning all the time, and (that) it's me who has the problem because I haven't won," Unser said.

"If there was a problem, either personal or professional, I'd be gone. I'd be fired. But Roger hasn't given me any indication that the team doesn't want me any longer, and I have no desire to go race for anyone else or in any other series.

"I haven't changed my desire for winning since the day I got in an Indy-car over 16 years ago. If you try forcing a victory, it won't come. I've had losing streaks before. Racing is fickle, and my dad always told me, 'When you're hot, your hot, and the next day, you're not.' And I'm not right now. But we'll light the burner again, maybe this week."

* ELSEWHERE: Hermie Sadler set a track record for Busch cars in qualifying for Saturday's Detroit Gasket 200 with a lap of 175.511 mph at Michigan Speedway. ... Rick Hendrick, who has had enormous success as a auto dealer and stock car team owner, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a plea agreement in a business bribery case that should keep him out of jail.