Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Unser’s speed impressive; Vasser, Tracy struggle

Thursday, May 9, 2002 | 9:58 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Al Unser Jr., a two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 and part-time Henderson resident, climbed back near the top of the speed charts as practice for the May 26 race continued Wednesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Unser, who was third fastest in Sunday's opening practice, clicked off a lap at 227.849 mph Wednesday in the Kelley Racing Dallara/Chevrolet. Unser finished the session as the fourth-fastest driver behind Scott Sharp (228.350), rookie Laurent Redon (228.046) and defending race winner Helio Castroneves (228.036).

Jimmy Vasser of Las Vegas, who is attempting to make his seventh Indy 500 start, was 22nd fastest at 224.498 mph in the Rahal Letterman Racing Dallara/Chevrolet.

"We tried some stuff with the chassis today," Vasser said. "We have been experimenting with a lot of components this week. We had our baseline setup on the first day and the car was really solid in all of the corners. Now it's been a variety of things to get more comfortable.

"To be honest, some (of the adjustments) have worked and some definitely haven't. But when you have a week to learn about things, you have to try every angle. But now it's time to settle in and improve on what you like as a driver and what will work best."

Las Vegan Paul Tracy, still struggling to find the right setup, was 24th fastest in practice Wednesday with a top speed of 224.462 mph in the Team Green 7-Eleven Racing Dallara Chevrolet.

"Today was very frustrating for everyone on the Team Green 7-Eleven car," Tracy said. "We want to go quicker but we just can't seem to find what it's going to take to make that happen. We have to keep working at it to try and get faster, but also to get a comfortable car.

"My car was pretty tough to drive today, and I don't want to get into a bad rhythm since the car is so nervous right now. I think the best thing for me is to clear my head and go out (today) with a clean slate and pretend like it's our first day at the Speedway."

Mark Dismore, driving one of two Dallara/Chevrolets for team owner Sam Schmidt of Henderson, was 13th fastest at 226.503 mph.

"Today we've been trying some bits and pieces and some different cambers and made a couple of spring changes out there on pit road," Dismore said. "We kind of evaluated what all that did and then we came back here and made some educated guesses on everything and rolled it out there at the last minute.

"We could see if we learned what we thought we learned. I think we did because we missed the gear on that run. That was a 227-something (mph) car right then and fortunately it was on the limiter halfway down the straightaway. I was happy about that. We've got some left in our pockets."

Anthony Lazzaro, Schmidt's other driver, was 33rd fastest at 220.858 mph.

Las Vegas resident John de Vries did not practice Wednesday in his Brayton Racing entry.

Fisher, 21, substituted for the injured Buhl on April 21 at the Firestone Indy 225 in Nazareth, Pa., and posted a fourth-place finish in her first start of the season.