The 71st Indianapolis 500 was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, on Sunday May 24, 1987….when after dominating practice….qualifying….and most of the race, the leader Mario Andretti slowed with mechanical problems with only 23 laps to go…..which was followed by Roberto Guerrero the new leader….while being a lap and a half up entered the pits for The Pit Stop From Hell with 14 laps to go….when his engine stalled…..and Al Unser Sr. assumed the lead….then he won his record-tying fourth Indianapolis 500 victory.
Al Unser’s victory is considered one of the biggest upsets in Indianapolis 500 history…..as Unser Sr’s driving career was beginning to wind down….having dropped down to part-time status a year earlier. He entered the 1987 month of May without a ride and without sponsorship money….which left him on the sidelines for the first week of practice….when after Danny Ongais suffered a concussion in a practice crash…Al Sr. was hired by Penske to fill the vacant seat…..and he proceeded to win the race with a year-old March chassis and the venerable Cosworth DFX won the power plant’s tenth consecutive Indy victory. Unser’s car, originally entered as a back-up, had been sitting in a hotel lobby in Reading, Pennsylvania, as a show car just weeks prior.
The race was sanctioned by USAC, and was included as part of the 1987 CART PPG Indy Car World Series. Of the notable statistics, the 1987 Indy 500 was the first such where the entry list did not include a single car built in the United States.
As evidenced by this video herewith….ABC Sports and their phenomenal broadcast crew led by Jim McKay, Jim Lampley, Sam Posey, Bobby Unser, Jack Arute, Al Trautwig amd Jerry Gappens filled in all the blanks to make this race a truly historic moment in sports
