Al Unser Jr on Late Show with David Letterman, 1994

Al Unser Jr. visits Dave after winning his 2nd Indianapolis 500 race in his first season driving for team owner Roger Penske. Original air date: June 7, 1994. The main story of the race was the effort by team owner Roger Penske to secretly commission development of a 209 cubic inch pushrod engine built by Mercedes to take advantage of a loophole in the rulebook allowing stock block engines more boost than purpose built engines. The loophole existed because USAC sanctions the Indianapolis 500, but has different rules than CART, which sanctions all the other races on the schedule. Roger Penske noticed the discrepancy and took advantage of it. The victory infuriated Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis 500, as he felt Penske spent his way to victory and pushed USAC to change the rules not once, but twice, in the ensuing months to erase the engine's technical advantage and disallow it from future competition. It was cited as a contributing factor that lead to the formation of the Indy Racing League (IRL) and boycott of CART which lasted for nearly 15 years. Penske drivers Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Paul Tracy spent the entire winter offseason testing the engine in secret logging more than 35,000 miles and swept the front row of the starting grid with Al Unser Jr. on the pole setting a new track qualifying record at 231+ mph. Al Unser Jr. lead the race until the first round of pit stops, after which Emerson Fittipaldi took the lead and ran away with the race lapping everybody but his team mates. Paul Tracy retired early with a blown engine. Heading into the final stretch of the race, Emerson Fittipaldi crashed into the wall in turn 4 while attempting to pass his team mate Al Unser Jr. giving Al the easy victory. Digitized from VHS tape.