Rick Mears Follows Yellow Brick Road to Indy Win : Yellow Car Takes Checkered Flag Under Record 14th Yellow Flag

INDIANAPOLIS — The race that didn’t want to end, the 72nd Indianapolis 500, finally ground to a merciful close Sunday in much the way it started--with a yellow Penske car out in front.

Running under the yellow caution flag.

Rick Mears, who had won the pole by averaging 219.198 m.p.h. and had laps of 207 during the race, won his third 500 while cruising along about 85 m.p.h., following pace-car driver Chuck Yeager.

Perhaps it was fitting that Mears took the checkered flag while starter Duane Sweeney was displaying the yellow flag. It seemed like most of the race here at the Old Brickyard was run that way.

Nine crashes, a couple of tow-ins for broken cars and a rabbit that got run down by Al Unser Sr. contributed to 14 caution flags for 67 laps, a race record. The last caution came after a piece of Michael Andretti’s car blew off and came to rest on the track.

All the yellow flags resulted in the slowest winning speed, 144.809 m.p.h., since 1981, when Bobby Unser won with a 139.084 m.p.h. average.

After three hours of confusion during which Al Unser, Jim Crawford and Emerson Fittipaldi were thought to have finished second, United States Auto Club officials finally gave it to Fittipaldi.

Fittipaldi, the two-time former world champion from Brazil, had been penalized two laps for apparently passing Rich Vogler under a yellow caution period. Because of that, the Penske team felt Crawford had finished second, but USAC said that Unser was second, a lap back of Mears.

The penalty against Fittipaldi was rescinded after Vogler said that he had waved at him to pass because he had just illegally passed Fittipaldi in a similar situation.

This made Mears’ official margin of victory 7.076 seconds, but that in no way reflected the tempo of the day.

Of the 133 laps run at racing speeds, the Penske domination was complete.

Danny Sullivan, who broke on top from the all-Penske front row, led 91 of the first 94 laps before hitting the wall at Turn 2 when a wing collapsed. At times, Sullivan pulled away by as much as 21 seconds.

After his Penske teammate went out, Unser, the defending champion, gave himself a 49th birthday present by leading 12 laps in mid-race, making him the Indy 500’s all-time race leader in laps led. Before the race, Unser and the late Ralph DePalma, who competed between 1911 and 1925, each had 613 laps in front. Now Unser, a four-time winner, has 625.

Then it was Mears’ turn.

After Mears fell more than a lap behind in the early stages while he and Roger Penske worked out a few kinks in the new Penske PC-17 chassis, he came on to lead 89 of the final 90 laps.

The only non-Penske driver to lead was Crawford, the amazing Scotsman who spent the entire year recuperating from a 237-m.p.h. crash during qualifying a year ago that shattered both his legs. Crawford, in a Buick-powered Lola, led eight laps and might have finished second had he not been forced to make a pit stop five laps from the finish with a punctured tire.

The 1-minute 40-second pit stop to change all four tires cost Crawford, who at first was listed as second but eventually was dropped back to sixth place behind Mears, Fittipaldi, Al Unser, Michael Andretti and national champion Bobby Rahal.

“I feel wonderful just being here,” Crawford said, thinking he had finished second. “I knew that as soon as the race started that the Penske cars were out there by themselves. Sullivan passed me so quick one time that he barely would have had time to wave.

“I had a really bad scare about six laps from the end when a tire punctured and almost put me in the wall. I thought about limping around but I decided to bring it in. Whenever your heart comes up to your throat, it’s time to come in.”

Mears’ win was the fourth in five years and the seventh since Mark Donohue won in 1972 for car owner and dynasty builder Penske, who listed two turning points in the race.

“The two most significant things were when Mario Andretti’s car began smoking and when Al Unser Jr. lost his CV joint,” Penske said. “They were the only two who I believed could seriously challenge us.

“We seemed to be able to pick up a second a lap on any other car, even Crawford and (Emerson) Fittipaldi toward the end.”

It just wasn’t Mario’s day. After sharing speed laurels most of the month of May with Mears, on the two days that counted--qualifying and the race--his Lola-Chevy wasn’t up to the task.

“At first we had a problem with the gear box,” said the elder of three Andrettis in the race. “Then we had a leak in the oil bearing and suddenly the ignition just went dead and then the engine. They changed all the electronics they could, but it must be something more than that.”

Little Al Unser, who won easily last month in the Long Beach Grand Prix, was running second behind Sullivan when the left-rear CV joint--once known as the universal joint--broke.

“I felt something let go when I left the pits but I didn’t know what it was,” Unser Jr. said. “I knew when it broke that we couldn’t win the race, but the Galles crew worked so hard to fix it that I thought I owed it to them to get back in the race. We were still going for national championship points.”

Unser Jr. was credited with 13th place, 20 laps behind Mears.

Close communication, built up over a 10-year relationship, between Mears and Penske helped bring the car from a lap down to the lead.

“We were frustrated at why the car would not work as well as it had, but we knew what it was and it was only a matter of time before we got the problem straightened out,” Mears said.

The problem was that it ran loose, preventing Mears from running down low in the corners where he could gather up momentum for high-speed runs down the long straightaways.

“I just couldn’t go very fast, that was all there was to it,” Mears said. “We changed the aerodynamic settings, basically. First, we changed the wheels, from the closed wheels to the open wheels, and that didn’t help much, so we changed the tire stagger and then wing settings and it all brought the car back to life.”

Mears was driving a new Penske PC-17 chassis that arrived fresh from the team’s factory in Poole, England, before the first practice day here three weeks ago. It was powered by a Chevy engine, designed by Mario Ilien, and built in the Ilmor Engineering factory in Brixworth, England.

“This ought to put an end to all that talk that the Chevy engine wouldn’t last 500 miles here,” said Penske, who was the man who talked Chevrolet into investing $10 million into developing a race-car engine.

Chevy-powered cars finished 1-2-3. It was the first time since 1978 that a Cosworth-Ford engine had not powered the winning car.

“After the way we ran all month, we just had to win,” Penske said. “It put a tremendous amount of pressure on us, winning the pole, putting all three cars on the front row and running fast every day. I know I was a little more on edge. A little more anxious. I woke up at 3 o’clock today and I usually sleep until 6. I wanted to get out here and get it done.”

By winning his third 500 here, Mears joined Louis Meyer, Wilbur Shaw, Mauri Rose, Bobby Unser and Rutherford, one win behind Al Unser and Foyt. It also was the 13th time in 72 races that the pole-sitter emerged the winner.

The crashing and the yellow flags started early.

Sullivan, Mears and Unser had no more than led the field through the first turn safely than Scott Brayton spun in the second turn, taking Roberto Guerrero and Tony Bettenhausen with him.

“I feel terrible, especially for the Guerrero team,” Brayton said.

Guerrero was stoic about his fate.

“Someone spun in front of me and there was nothing I could do,” Guerrero said. It ended a remark-able streak for the young Colombian driver who in four races here had finished 2-3-4-2.

Bettenhausen was not so charitable.

“I shouldn’t have ever been in the wreck,” he said. “We’re supposed to be professionals and I only got around one turn and wrecked a $150,000 car.”

All the other accidents were single car crashes, involving, in order, Teo Fabi, Tom Sneva, A.J. Foyt, Ludwig Heimrath, Steve Chassey, Sullivan, Johnny Rutherford and Vogler.

Two, Fabi’s and Vogler’s, had unusual twists.

Fabi, in the first Porsche-powered car ever to run at Indy, came into the pits for his first stop, took on fuel and tires, hit the accelerator and smacked the pit wall. Some one had not tightened the lug nuts.

Vogler, late in the race, brushed the wall in the first turn and came in to replace what he thought was a deflated tire. The yellow caution flag came out to pick up the debris from the accident. Vogler came in, took on a new tire and went out and almost immediately crashed.

Vogler had crashed during a yellow flag period brought on by himself.

The problem had not been a bad tire but a broken rear suspension, which caused both accidents.

Foyt’s crash at the top of the front straightaway was caused by the impatience of a 53-year-old driver looking for his fifth 500 win.

“I’m pretty disgusted with myself,” Foyt said, uncharacteristically. “We had a bad vibration so we came in and changed tires and I killed the engine leaving.

“Then I was out there trying to pick up some time in passing a group of cars. I got below the yellow line and got in some dirty air and it (his car) just jacked the back end around. I should have waited but I’m not the type of guy to wait.”

After Foyt hit the outside wall, he slid crazily across the track, causing a wild melee among a group of closely following drivers. Sullivan, in particular, made a daring move to avoid the spinning car and still managed to keep from hitting other cars caught in the tight quarters.

Sullivan’s day ended when a wing adjuster failed on the front of his car and the change in aerodynamics caused him to hit the wall in the second turn. The impact injured his knee but not enough to keep him from staying in the Penske pits and root for Mears.

“I’m not surprised that we ran so well and dominated the first half of the race,” the 1985 winner said. “I just wish it had lasted twice as long.”

Slippery track conditions, brought on by 97 degree temperatures, were blamed for many of the accidents--and close calls.

“I got sideways at the start in turn one and came close to losing it six times,” said Dick Simon, at 54 the oldest driver in the race. “I was lucky. The biggest problem was running in traffic. It was pretty hairy on the restarts.” And there were a lot of them.

Winners rarely blame anything, and that was Mears’ reaction to the heat.

“I didn’t notice any problems at all,” he said. “You don’t get very hot when you’ve got a 200-m.p.h. breeze all day long.”

Mears also said he felt no concern about having finished under the yellow flag.

“It’s part of the deal,” he said. “It’s never happened to me before, but I don’t think it affected the outcome a bit. There were only two laps to go and the way we were running we could have coasted in the last lap.”

The last time an Indy 500 finished under caution was 1973 when Gordon Johncock won after the race was stopped because of rain. The last time it finished under yellow because of an accident was 1967 when Foyt won after Bob Grim crashed on the final lap.

Billy Vukovich III, grandson of the 1953 and 1954 winner, was the only one of five rookies to finish, coming in 14th. The finish will likely earn him rookie of the race honors, the same award his father, Bill Vukovich Jr., won in 1968 when he finished seventh.

INDIANAPOLIS 500 FINISH

Pos Driver Hometown Car-Engine Laps or Country 1 Rick Mears Bakersfield Penske-Chevy 200 2 Emerson Fittipaldi Brazil March-Chevy 200 3 Al Unser Sr. Albuquerque, N.M. Penske-Chevy 199 4 Michael Andretti Nazareth, Pa. March-Cosworth 199 5 Bobby Rahal Dublin, Ohio Lola-Judd 199 6 Jim Crawford Scotland Lola-Buick 198 7 Raul Boesel Brazil Lola-Cosworth 198 8 Phil Krueger Indianapolis 1986 March-Cosworth 196 9 Dick Simon Capistrano Beach Lola-Cosworth 196 10 Arie Luyendyk Netherlands Lola-Cosworth 196 11 Kevin Cogan Palos Verdes March-Cosworth 195 12 Howdy Holmes Ann Arbor, Mich. March-Cosworth 192 13 Al Unser Jr. Albuquerque, N.M. March-Chevy 180 14 *Bill Vukovich III Coarsegold, Calif. March-Cosworth 179 15 Randy Lewis Hillsborough, Calif. Lola-Cosworth 175 16 Rick Vogler Indianapolis 1987 March-Cosworth 159 17 *Rocky Moran Pasadena March-Cosworth. 158 18 *Dominic Dobson Fairfax, Calif. 1987 Lola-Cosworth 145

Pos Comment 1 2 Running 3 Running 4 Running 5 Running 6 Running 7 Running 8 Running 9 Running 10 Running 11 Running 12 Running 13 Running 14 Running 15 Running 16 Accident 17 Engine 18 Coolant

Pos Driver Hometown Car-Engine Laps or Country 19 *Tero Palmroth Finland Lola-Cosworth 143 20 Mario Andretti Nazareth, Pa. Lola-Chevy 118 21 *John Andretti Indianapolis Lola-Cosworth 114 22 Johnny Rutherford Fort Worth Lola-Buick 107 23 Danny Sullivan Louisville Penske-Chevy 101 24 Steve Chassey Carmel, Ind. March-Cosworth 73 25 Ludwig Heimrath Jr. Canada Lola-Cosworth 59 26 A.J. Foyt Houston Lola-Cosworth 54 27 Tom Sneva Paradise Valley, Ariz. Lola-Judd 32 28 Teo Fabi Italy March-Porsche 30 29 Derek Daly Ireland Lola-Cosworth 18 30 Stan Fox Janesville, Wis. 1986 March-Chevy 2 31 Scott Brayton Coldwater, Mich. Lola-Buick 0 32 Roberto Guerrero Italy Lola-Cosworth 0 33 Tony Bettenhausen Indianapolis Lola-Cosworth 0

Pos Comment 19 Engine 20 Electrical 21 Engine 22 Accident 23 Crash 24 Crash 25 Crash 26 Crash 27 Crash 28 Crash 29 Gearbox 30 Half shaft 31 Crash 32 Crash 33 Crash

*--Rookie driver.

Time--3:27:10.2. Winner’s speed--144.809 m.p.h.

Lap leaders--Danny Sullivan, 91; Rick Mears, 89; Al Unser, 12; Jim Crawford, 8.