Three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby Unser belongs to one of the most famous racecar families in America. He had 35 career Indy wins, was the first driver to record a 200 mph qualifying average speed in Indy car competition, and won the Indianapolis 500 three times - in 1968, 1975, and 1981.
Now, 22 years after retiring from the sport, Unser has written his life story, putting down in words the philosophy that made him such a success, on the track and off. Entitled Winners are Driven, Unser's book is more than an autobiography, discussing the principles and strategies behind his fame.
Winners are Driven has just been released as a seven-hour unabridged audiobook. I spoke to Unser by phone at his home in Albuquerque.
Jonathon Lowe: We seem to live in a win-at-all-cost era. Your book focuses on integrity, though, using examples from your past to illustrate various points. What is your favorite example of why integrity is important? The Goodyear vs. Firestone tire incident?
UNSER: That was a perfect example, and why we put it in the book. I turned down a tremendous amount of money at the time, over switching tire companies, because your word has to be your bond. People are used to older people saying that, but we should all have integrity, and unfortunately it doesn't seem to prevail as it should.
Lowe: Wouldn't it be great if integrity was the rule of law for politicians?
UNSER: Yeah, that would be such an asset. We've come to accept politicians openly and outwardly lying to us. But why do we? It shouldn't be accepted. And they have become used to the fact that they can lie, and that nobody believes them, and it just flows out of their mouths.
Lowe: Internal politics was involved in the race win that they took away from you for a time in 1981, right?
UNSER: Yes, they created an infraction after the race was done. At a meeting I was never invited to, they said the blending point - where you get back into the race from the pit - was going to be at the end of the pits, not coming off of turn two, which had been the rule. All the drivers that testified on my behalf didn't remember that change, so it must have really been a deep secret. There was nothing in print, that's for sure. When ABC does that race, though, you see, they have 25 cameras around the race track, and they all record all the time, so what we did was get hold of the tapes nobody ever sees. So when we saw those, darned if Mario (Andretti) and many other cars didn't do exactly the same thing. So they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They'd wanted to start a war between teams Patrick and Penske, and it backfired on them. Indianapolis should be above that. It's the largest single sporting event on earth.
Lowe: Earlier in your career, you used walnut shells in tire rubber. Sounds like what Thomas Edison might have tried. What gave your team that idea?
UNSER: Well, the idea was if you put walnut shells in the rubber, when you wear the tire down, the shells are going to flake out. So when that happens it becomes like a sponge, and gets hold of the coarse road better. A gain of about 40 percent. We also tried crushed batteries.
Lowe: What gave you the idea to even try that?
UNSER: Because it was some rubber that was made for ice. So I put shells on one side of the car, and crushed batteries in the rubber on the other, and we found the shells got the best traction. That was a secret for us, and I took the concept to Goodyear. I did a lot of tire development for Goodyear, in fact, and after years of trying to develop rain tires, we finally developed a compound tire that did better than the walnut shells.
Lowe: Traction versus speed, then.
UNSER: Yes, the biggest gain we found was in the turns, not just going faster down the straightaway. Traction is most important.
Lowe: You talk about an eight-second pit stop at Indianapolis, which is an amazing time for changing four tires and refueling. Is there a most memorable pit stop for you?
UNSER: None most memorable, as I've done thousands. Often things will go wrong, for sure. Probably the worst was in Ô81, in the Indy race, when because of the design of the fuel filler that year, there was a tendency of the sleeve to stick. It happened to Rick Mears' car, which caught fire. He jumped out, got burned a little. Same thing happened to me, but what I did was just take off out of the pits, gambling that the flames would blow out, which they did. It burned my left sleeve, but that could have cost me the race had I just jumped out.
Lowe: Did you know Dale Earnhardt?
UNSER: Yes, I did.
Lowe: What is your thought on track safety today?
UNSER: Safety has just steadily gotten better. Racing will never be totally safe, but it's so much better than it used to be. Goodyear, for one, spent lots of money, not just on winning races, but on safety. Like fuel cells, breakaway fittings, clothing. Bill Simpson was a tremendous help with safety. Simpson Safety Products really got technology going that way. My brother died from burns at Indianapolis, and there was just no safety back then. Helmets, clothing, cars, walls, all were just terrible. We used to accept the fact that about 50 percent of the drivers died while racing, and that wasn't a good number.
Lowe: Fifty percent?
UNSER: Yeah, but it's changed, now, and you hardly ever see a fire today. The uniforms are a thousand percent better. Drivers I remember used to race in tee shirts, back when there were no bladders in the fuel tanks. Now Indy cars have a lot of shock absorption qualities, whereas in NASCAR the frame is rigid. Steel tubing.
Lowe: That's not good.
UNSER: Now this is turning out to be a negative, and NASCAR is looking into remedies, because they've got to do something about shock absorbing. An Indy car, where the driver sits, is like a capsule, where everything else can shuck away. NASCAR cars, like Dale's. . .that's a rigid frame, and one of the reasons why he died. I saw the report on Earnhart. Best done investigation of an accident I've seen. Of course there were many reasons why Dale got killed. Problems that came together all at the same time.
Lowe: Dale Jr. carries on. Do you have children, yourself?
UNSER: Four kids. Two daughters and two boys.
Lowe: Do you listen to audiobooks yourself, while driving, or recommend them?
UNSER: Absolutely. I have some people who've gotten mine, and listen while going to work. Ironically, some are in L.A. with the bad freeways! But what a beautiful way to read a book. I think audiobooks are a fabulous idea.
Novelist Jonathan Lowe is a reviewer for AudiobooksToday.com.
