Al Unser Jr. hopes for the best in Indy 500 return

Thursday, May 4, 2006 | 7:33 a.m.

Al Unser Jr., a veteran of more than 300 CART and IRL races, knows exactly what to expect when he pulls his car onto the historic 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday for his first practice for this year's Indianapolis 500.

Although Sunday officially is a day for Indy 500 rookies, Unser will be on the track to shake off any rust he might have accumulated during a 20-month layoff. Unser, 44 and a Henderson resident since 2002, is stepping out of retirement to run the Indy 500 as a one-off effort with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

Unser raced for 22 years, long enough to know that he is unlikely to win and join his uncle Bobby as a three-time winner of the 500.

"First off, if we can finish, (that) would be a realistic goal," Unser said of his first race since June 2004. "Other than that, I don't know.

"The IRL is so equally competitive now with everybody running Honda engines. The majority of the cars out there are Dallaras. Everybody's on the same tires with Firestone. It's really a whole different atmosphere than when I was a rookie ... where you had different engines and different cars."

Unser is scrambling to put together a second team with Dreyer & Reinbold and will run as a teammate to 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier. That will put the new team at a disadvantage this month, he said.

"I've tried to do everything I can to put people in place that I've worked with before, that know me ... but we still have some people that we need to hire," he said. "We're not going to have the luxury of the other teams having (been to) the different races - St. Pete, Homestead, Motegi. Really, the biggest challenge is going to be just keeping everybody's head together on race day; just try to make it a nice, smooth race for everyone."

Having an experienced driver such as Lazier as a teammate will help.

"It's critical to have a teammate that you can get along with," Unser said. "Quite honestly, I think with Buddy's attitude and his style of driving, that we're going to be able to work very well together."

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