The Auto Racing Digest Archive

November 1981

I’m taking a one week respite from revisiting old issues of Baseball Digest to look at an issue of Auto Racing Digest, one which largely focused on what was arguably the most controversial Indy 500 ever contested; the 1981 race. In that race, Bobby Unser took the checkered flag, but after runner up Mario Andretti filed a protest, Unser was penalized & Andretti declared the winner. Unser filed a counter protest, and several months later Unser was finally named as the official winner. (That ultimate decision was not reached until after this issue was published, so it was produced under the assumption that Andretti was still the winner.)

The origin of the controversy came from the fact that rules at the time were somewhat ambiguous. Both Unser & Andretti took pit stops under a yellow flag; rather than blend into the field following the stop Unser passed more than a dozen cars while still on the track apron & was therefore able to put himself in a more advantageous position as the field lined up for the green flag. Passing on the track under a yellow is illegal; Unser contended that he didn’t make any passes ON the track. ABC’s broadcast of the race didn’t help. This was back when the network aired the race later that evening on tape delay. Apparently the team of Jim McKay & Jackie Stewart didn’t notice anything unusual when the race was happening; it was in post production that they raised objection and were clearly favoring Andretti - who also passed cars, just not as many as Unser did. (ABC announcers calling events after they occurred was common at the time. One of the network’s most memorable events was Frank Gifford & Bob Beattie’s call of Franz Klammer’s gold medal run in the 1976 Olympic downhill. As it turns out they recorded the call after the race was run, so they knew the result already.)

Basically the first half of this issue was all about this race & the surrounding controversy. In the end, it was yet another chapter in the story of the so-called Andretti Curse at Indianapolis. For all of his success, Mario Andretti only managed to win the 500 once, and many of his losses were of an excruciating nature. Moreover his son Michael was a great champion in his own right, but he holds the dubious distinction of having led the most career laps at Indy of any driver who never actually won the race.

Among the other notable pieces in this issue were reports on some of the major races from 1981. It always strikes me to see how uncompetitive racing was in this era. In that year’s Memorial Day race at Charlotte, only 2 drivers finished on the lead lap - Bobby Allison & Harry Gant. Not only that, but even the third place driver was a full 2 laps behind the leaders; the 10th place finisher was 10 laps down. I know that old school racing fans love to overly romanticize the past, but the quality of the competition is much better now.

The article on Terry Labonte, then in the early phase of what would become a Hall of Fame career, also mentioned in passing the promise that his then-17 year old brother Bobby was showing. Bobby would eventually follow his older brother into the Hall.

Next week I’ll return to our regularly scheduled perusal through an old Baseball Digest.

Reviewing Olympic Sports

Equestrian - Cue up Echo & the Bunnymen; bring on the dancing horses! Equestrian is another one of those sports which used to make up a large percentage of ABC’s Olympic coverage as well as the earliest NBC broadcasts, but has gradually fallen further & further down the priority list. It was never one of my favorites, partially due to the fact that I was always uncomfortable thinking about how the horses were probably treated. My personal policy has always been that once I see a sport in which a competitor is wearing a top hat it’s a cue to watch something else.

Equestrian’s place in the Olympic program has been tenuous in recent years, and that is largely due to equine safety. Simply put, are the jumps too dangerous for the horses? Same with the reality that we live on a heating planet, is running a cross country course under these conditions too much for them? The IOC along with the governing body for the sport has some difficult decisions ahead of them.

Fencing - Once again no one is listening to my suggestion that bonus points should be awarded for witty repartee during swordplay. It would add a level of entertainment to a sport that desperately needs it. There’s a definite Catch-22 when it comes to fencing. I’m sure that I would understand the sport better if I watched it more. But it doesn’t interest me enough to do so. There are 3 different swords used - epee, foil, and sabre - each with different rules. I don’t follow the sport closely enough to get the difference among those three, and I don’t think I ever will. What totally destroys my desire to watch more fencing is the frequency with which judges have to interrupt the action so that they can view replay monitors to see if there was a scoring touch or not. It drags things out and kills momentum. Sorry, it’s not for me.

Update #1

It has happened! Loss #120 for the Chicago White Sox, matching the 1962 Mets for the most losses by any team post-1900. The weekend epitomized what the year has been like for that team. It’s not just that the Padres swept them, it’s how they did it. On Friday the Sox were down to their final strike, but Lenyn Sosa hit a game-tying 2 run homer. The thrill was all for naught, as the Pads went on to win it in 10. Yesterday, the Pale Hose were up 1 run in the 8th, but San Diego scored three runs in the bottom of the 8th & then closed out Chicago in the 9th.

Unless Chicago somehow runs the table in the final week, they will soon have the record for most losses in the modern era. They do have some potential victories this week; they are playing the Angels in the Tuesday-Thursday series. That’s a classic example of a resistible force meeting a movable object, so anything is possible. But they close out the season with a series against the sizzling hot Tigers. I’ll go out on a limb and say that Chicago will lose at least one game this week.

Keep in mind there is still one additional record in their sights. The 1962 Mets have the most losses, but the worst team in the modern era is actually the 1916 Philadelphia A’s, who played when the season only ran for 154 games. They finished with a record of 36-117; Chicago finishing with the lowest win percentage of the modern era is still very much in play. They will need to go 3-3 this week to avoid breaking that record.

As for good baseball teams, so much can & will change this week. In the AL, the Orioles, Royals, & Twins are all sputtering towards the finish line and the Tigers have taken advantage; Detroit is currently in playoff position. You can’t even count out the Mariners. In the NL the Padres appear solidly in, so it’s a 3-team scramble among the Braves, Diamondbacks, and Mets for the other 2 spots. If the Mets take 2 out of 3 from Atlanta this week, they’re in.

I gotta say, I was sitting in Citi Field watching the Mets drop a doubleheader to the Dodgers the day after Memorial Day. This was just before Jorge Lopez’s glove toss into the stands. That week was the low point of the season; I would have never imagined at the time that THIS team would not only be a viable playoff contender, but also a team earning the distinction of The Team That No One Wants To Face In The Postseason. I know that how hot or cold a team is in September is rarely an indication of how a team will fare in October. With that out of the way, I’m looking forward to the inevitable Mets/Tigers World Series. Winner gets custody of Mickey Lolich.

Update #2

Round 1 of the NASCAR playoffs is in the books, and I went, umm, 1 for 4 in my predictions of which drivers would be eliminated after the first set of races. Look away, nothing to see here. The drivers now eliminated from playoff contention were Harrison Burton, Ty Gibbs, Brad Keselowski, and Martin Truex Jr. So, as he is retiring at the end of the season Truex will not have the opportunity to end his career with the ultimate mic drop. To make things worse, Truex was near the front of the pack for most of the race and was in good position to get the result that he needed. Unfortunately he was hit with a speeding penalty on his final pit stop, placing him too far back to earn those crucial points. Wait a sec, a speeding penalty in an auto race? Yep, for the safety of the crew members there are speed limits in the pit area, which are strictly enforced. That stinks for Truex, but it’s an important rule.

Update #3

The WNBA playoffs are underway, in the wake of a regular season that was as successful as league officials had hoped it would be. There was no doubt going into the year that the rookie class was going to raise the level of attention to the league; the question was going to be all about retention. Would the people tuning in to see Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese come back to see more games? The answer was an emphatic yes. Attendance and ratings figures remained high throughout the season. In a further sign of optimism, expansion is on the horizon with the Golden State Valkyries joint the league next year along with new franchises in Portland and Toronto to follow in 2026. Golden State has received 17,000 deposits for season tickets. That is the sign of a healthy league.

It certainly helped that both Clark and Reese proved to be as good as advertised, if not better. Both players put up historic numbers. Clark was the major reason why Indiana went from oblivion to the 6 seed in the playoffs. Reese helped lead Chicago to playoff contention; the team was starting to hit the wall at the end of the year and then Reese suffered a season ending shoulder injury which ended all hopes for the club.

The league still runs through the veterans. The two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces had an ordinary year, finishing as the 4 seed, but A’ja Wilson put together what might be the single greatest individual season in league history. Yesterday she was announced as the 2024 MVP, becoming only the second player after Cynthia Cooper to have won the award unanimously. In addition, she joined Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Lauren Jackson as the only 3-time winners of the award. This is only her 7th season in the league; she has plenty of time to add more hardware to her trophy case.

The league’s playoff structure for the first round is very unusual. That round is best of 3, the higher seed hosts the first 2 games. The only potential home game for the lower seed is game 3. In other words, the winner take all game is held on the court of the team WITHOUT home court advantage. All 4 home teams took care of business in game 1, but there has to be a tremendous amount of pressure on each to finish things off in game 2. You do not want to face a must-win game on the road, regardless of whether or not your record indicates that you are the better team.

The New York Liberty earned the #1 seed with the league’s best record. The Liberty are the only surviving original franchise not to have won a championship yet. They have been a perennial bridesmaid, having reached the finals 5 times without a title to show for it. They also had to suffer through a period of almost a decade in which then-owner James Dolan completely neglected the franchise. I’m not sure what was worse: was it when he named Isiah Thomas team president? Only Dolan would think it was a good idea to hand stewardship of a women’s team to a man who had been sued in a sexual harassment cases. Or perhaps it was the years in which instead of playing games in Madison Square Garden he farmed them out to a venue in Westchester that was a glorified rec center. Thank goodness he eventually sold the team. There’s a lot of basketball to be played, but this may finally be the Liberty’s year.

Lastly, Wednesday night’s game 2 of the Minnesota/Phoenix series is a big one. If Phoenix loses it is almost certainly the final game of Diana Taurasi’s brilliant career. She hasn’t said in so many words that she is retiring, but she has strongly implied her intention to do so.

50 Years Ago - Rock & Roll Animal

One thing you can say about Lou Reed is that he never gave a f***. He didn’t care if you liked him personally, or if you liked any of the changes in musical direction that he would ever take. The live album Rock & Roll Animal came out two years after he had his biggest commercial success with the Transformer album and the Walk On the Wild Side single. Yet there was nothing from Transformer to be heard here. Instead the 5 songs on the record consisted of a song from his Berlin concept album + 4 songs from the Velvet Underground catalog.

It’s not as if live versions of VU would have been a big hook in 1974. Nowadays the Underground have a few songs that are part of the classic rock canon but it took years for that to happen. For the longest time it was impossible to hear any of their music on the radio. When I began my intense interest in rock music history, the Velvet Underground were a band whom I often read about as being so influential, but I didn’t actually hear their music. I purchased a copy of Rock & Roll Animal in around ‘82 or ‘83 and it was with these versions that I actually heard the songs for the first time. I was so impressed that I quickly purchased the debut album with the banana cover & the rest is history.

The stars of this album were the twin guitarists Dick Wagner & Steve Hunter, who would shortly form the core of Alice Cooper’s backup band. The extended intro on Sweet Jane almost served as an overture, the two of them absolutely shredded for several minutes before Reed entered the stage to provide his distinctive deadpan vocal work. Some people criticize the overly slick production on this record, but to me it served as a wonderful introduction to Lou Reed’s music that from an era that Walk On the Wild Side fans would not have been familiar with.

And yes, Lou Reed just did not give a f***. He might have been lumped in with the glam rock scene when he made his commercial breakthrough, but rather than donning bright colors he stuck with an all-black wardrobe, right down to his painted nails. Countless artists have made left turns to try to separate real fans from trend followers - that has basically been the running story throughout Neil Young’s career - but only Lou Reed made the drastic turn of releasing Metal Machine Music; an album so abrasive that it was unlistenable to even the most devoted Lou Reed fans. There was only one Lou Reed, which was fortunate. I don’t know if we could have handled another one.

Closing Laughs

Ready for the latest example of Too Much Perspective? Today is Bruce Springsteen’s 75 the birthday! Ouch. Have an enjoyable day and be sure to come back here on Wednesday. See you then.