TSN Originals: The 1992 Indianapolis 500 was decided in a blink

Bob Hille

TSN Originals: The 1992 Indianapolis 500 was decided in a blink image

First, despite what you were told, here’s a little math: A car traveling at 220 mph covers 293 feet in one second.

Next, a soupçon of science: Rubber that falls in the Shore 60A range on a durometer is harder when cold.

Finally, dumb luck: There’s no explaining it.

Now, on to the 1992 Indianapolis 500, the closest in the race’s history.

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Thirty years ago, Sunday, May 24, dawned cold (48 degrees) and windy (gusts to 23 mph) in central Indiana. The windchill by the time Jim Nabors sang “Back Home Again in Indiana,” a pre-race tradition, had “warmed” to 39.

Mark Purdy, in his column for The Sporting News, wrote: “Which brings us to a helpful tip for the next Shell Answer Man brochure: Cold, slick racing tires don’t stick to cold, slick asphalt.”

Pole-sitter Roberto Guerrero provided anecdotal evidence to the equation — cold racing slicks + cold pavement = zero traction — as he entered the backstretch on the second parade lap behind Bobby Unser in the Cadillac Allanté pace car.

Suddenly, surprisingly because the cars weren’t even up to pace-lap speed, the back end of Guerrero’s racer fish-tailed right, the No. 36 spun and skidded through the grass, catching the undercarriage before it slammed into the inside wall.

“Absolutely inexplicable,” stunned analyst Sam Posey said on ABC-TV’s broadcast.

“The only thing that one might consider,” announcer Paul Page countered, having just interviewed Unser from the pace car, “Bobby indicated how cold it is and because of that — look, the car is damaged — the tires may not have come up to full temperature and maybe with that high-torque engine, when he shifted gears, just suddenly … boy.”

Page paused in mid-sentence as ABC’s replay showed the car hitting the wall again.

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The car’s suspension was damaged to the point Guerrero couldn’t continue. The pole-sitter who qualified at 232.482 mph was out of the 76th 500 before the green flag, before even the pace lap.

“What a terrible situation for Roberto Guerrero, one of the nicest men in racing,” Page said.

In truth, for many, that day at Indy was a terrible situation.

Guerrero’s crash began a trend, Purdy would write: “Sixty of the first 109 laps were under a yellow caution light while the track was cleaned up after various accidents. For almost two hours, the Indy 500 looked more like a high-tech Rose Parade, with the race cars slowly following the pace car around and around. The only thing missing was the University of Michigan marching band.”

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And yet it was a race. Michael Andretti, with his new Ford Cosworth XB engine, was fastest all week in the run-up to the race and had led 160 laps of 189 laps. He was 30 seconds in front of Al Unser Jr. in second place, followed closely by Canadian Scott Goodyear in third.

Remember dumb luck? It ain’t always good.

Down the backstretch, Andretti suddenly began to slow. His fuel pump had failed, and the No. 1 coasted to a stop in the north short chute.

“This place is cruel, so cruel,” Andretti said afterward.

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Thirty seconds back moments earlier, Al Unser Jr. suddenly inherited the lead, with Goodyear right behind. The caution went out for Andretti's stalled car, and the field bunched for a late-race restart. The race went green with seven laps to go on the 2.5-mile oval.

“When Michael Andretti lost the lead those last few laps, I thought, ‘This is a real possibility,’” Goodyear recalled after the race. "It was a two-car race from there.”

With four laps to go, Unser held a 0.3-second lead. On the final lap, Goodyear drafted Unser down the backstretch and tucked closely behind through the final turn. In turn four, Unser got loose and had to back off the throttle ever so slightly.

Goodyear pounced.

Out of that final turn, Goodyear zig-zagged behind Unser down the straightaway.

“I was trying to make the race car as wide as I could on the main straightaway,” said Unser. “But he was right under my exhaust.”

A few hundred yards from the finish line, Goodyear pulled left alongside Unser, attempting a slingshot pass.

Wrote Purdy: “How quick is 43/1000ths of a second? Quicker than you can have a thought about how quick it is.”That’s the margin Unser won by, 0.043 seconds, less than a car length at 220 mph.

 

 

“Thirteen cars turned into shrapnel at a combined cost of $6.5 million,” Purdy wrote of the crash-filled day. “Unser doesn’t even get a flat tire.”

Back to the math: A car traveling at 220 mph, which Unser and Goodyear were, covers 293 feet in one second.

“I wish the finish line had been 100 yards farther down the straightaway,” Goodyear lamented, though 10 yards might’ve done the trick.

(Amazingly, ABC-TV blinked and missed the finish on a switch from one camera to another at the finish line. All viewers saw was the checkered flag being waved over an empty Brickyard, the 1-2 finishers already far past the finish line.)

Funny thing. The closest Indy 500 was the slowest in decades, the result of all those crashes and cautions. Unser’s average speed was 137.47 mph, the slowest 500 since 1958, four years before he was born.

The cool day and slow pace helped Unser’s Chevy engine stay competitive with the faster Fords. Luck? Maybe.

On victory lane, ABC’s Jack Arute, interviewing Unser, noted the emotion in the driver’s voice.

“Well,” Unser responded, “you just don’t know what Indy means.”

That quote was etched in Indianapolis 500 lore in just more than 0.043 seconds.

Bob Hille

Bob Hille Photo

Bob Hille, a senior content consultant for The Sporting News, has been part of the TSN team for most of the past 30 years, including as managing editor and executive editor. He is a native of Texas (forever), adopted son of Colorado, where he graduated from Colorado State, and longtime fan of “Bull Durham” (h/t Annie Savoy for The Sporting News mention).