There was little that the late Bobby Unser enjoyed more than holding court and telling tales about the numerous adventures from his celebrated racing career.
And he was an acclaimed storyteller. He could leave a listener enthralled, bent over in laughter, and not caring they should possibly be a bit wary of the details because of Unser’s equally acclaimed inclination to embellish.
There’s no better example of these “Uncle Bobby” trademarks than his 1966 crash at Phoenix. During the Spring Jimmy Bryan Memorial weekend, his car pounded nose first into the guardrail, plowed under it and popped out the other side, leaving Unser relatively unscathed.
When asked how he managed to escape unharmed, he told Bill Vukovich Jr, and this scribe, with that Unser chuckle, “Son, Bobby Unser has excellent reflexes. I just closed my eyes and ducked.”
Cynical, Vuky challenged, “I’ve raced with you. Your reflexes aren’t that quick, Unser.” Probed with more barbs from Vuky, Unser relented and reluctantly acknowledged that luck just might’ve played a small part in his survival. Still, the story is not without its own witty Bobby Unser twists and turns.
At the time he was driving Gordon Van Liew’s Vita Fresh Orange Juice Specials. During testing before the season-opening March 20, 1966, Phoenix race, a suspension part broke on the team’s Joe Huffaker, built rear-engine Offy. The ensuing crash destroyed the car.
Van Liew, beginning to lose interest in Indy car racing wasn’t inclined to buy another car in time for the Phoenix run. So, Unser contacted Huffaker and sweet-talked him into another car.
“Joe didn’t try selling it to me, or lease it, he just loaned it to me,” marveled Unser. “I had a car but no crew. I recruited a couple guys to help me when I got to Phoenix. They weren’t experienced at all, but they were all I could find last minute.
“As it turned out one of them mounted a wheel wrong,” Unser continued. “The knockoff hub was tight, but the wheel wasn’t seated. That caused a big problem under braking later in the race.”
Running well from his sixth qualifying spot, on the 25th lap, the left-front wheel departed the car, and he shot into and under Phoenix’s Armco barrier.
“You just can’t imagine how fast that happened,” insisted Unser, with a shake of his head. “I must have been out for a short time, and when I came to I couldn’t see a racetrack anywhere. I knew I had been in a race, but no race track.
“I was pointed up the hill away from the track, and the first thing I saw when I came around was two horses’ butts. There were these two Indians on horseback, dressed in cowboy hats and boots. I didn’t know what in the world was happening. Then I saw Roger McCluskey standing over me, I think it was McCluskey, I was still groggy, out of it. He was shaking my head, and feeling around my neck…I think he was checking to see if my head was cut off.”
Unser was intact. Nothing broken, no cuts. He experienced a headache and most likely received a concussion. But there were no concussion protocols in those days.
How he passed under the guardrail without being seriously injured or killed remains a mystery. Most likely the shape of the car acted as a wedge and pushed the guardrail up enough to allow him to pass under it. After he shot beneath, the guardrail dropped back in place.
“The car was white,” recalled Unser, “but had been yellow at one time. After the crash, I noticed yellow paint on my helmet. See, the guardrail forced my head back so far that it rubbed through the white, and into old yellow paint from somewhere underneath the roll bar.
“Let me tell you that was a bad deal all the way around,” insisted Unser. “The only thing that would’ve been worse is if those horses had taken a dump on me while I was sitting there.
“That was the second Huffaker car I’d destroyed in a few days. I really was afraid I was going to get a bill from him. Hell, I didn’t have any money back then. I was broke and sleeping in my car as often as not.”
A few weeks later Unser did indeed receive a delivery from Huffaker. It wasn’t a bill, however. It was a box containing the car’s twisted, mangled steering wheel.
