Al Unser Jr. stepped off American Airlines flight 2659 late Wednesday afternoon, April 17, and made his way through Terminal A at John Wayne Airport. He descended a set of stairs to the baggage claim area.
His wife, Norma Unser, accompanied him.
Besides the echoey din of travelers chatting with each other and heaving their bags off turnstiles, all was quiet. There were no trumpets. There were no crowds waving checkered flags. There was no fanfare of any kind.
But make no mistake: For nearby Long Beach, Unser Jr.’s arrival was regal.
The “King of the Beach” had returned.
Unser Jr., the prodigal, often-wayward son of a blue-blood racing family, had made the nearly 1,800-mile flight from his home in the Indianapolis area to Southern California to attend the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach – the iconic street course he dominated in the 1980s and ’90s – for the first time since 2019.
Unser Jr. won the Grand Prix of Long Beach a record six times.
And this weekend, he’s found himself back on that iconic 1.97-mile circuit, driving the pace car for the Historic IndyCar Challenge races. He’ll pace the competitors again on Sunday.
But Unser Jr.’s journey back to Long Beach was far longer than just a six-hour flight to John Wayne Airport and a 45-minute drive up the 405 Freeway. No, it was downright Odyssean. There were personal and professional trials. Self-destruction and self-betterment. Sins and absolution.
“I was blessed with the talent that God gave me,” Unser Jr. said in a recent interview. “Having that much talent is mixed. It’s a blessing but then it’s a curse too.
“For me, if I was looking back (on my life in) hindsight,” he added, “I’d say, be careful what you wish for.”
His life has had more hairpin turns than the race he once reigned over. And while his life’s checkered flag hasn’t yet waved, Unser Jr. is finally on a straightaway.
Unser Jr. and his wife left John Wayne Airport in a rented Nissan Maxima and made their way north to Redondo Beach’s Portofino Hotel. Unser Jr. and his wife are staying there with other members of the Vintage Indy team, which helped organize the historic challenge races and funded the couple’s trip.
It’s easy to picture Unser Jr., behind the wheel, navigating the 405 Freeway’s notorious rush hour traffic with the ease of a man used to much faster speeds and far more harrowing bottlenecks.
Trudging along the 405 Freeway, after all, may be frustrating but it’s nothing like trying to pass a competitor at nearly 200 mph on the narrow Grand Prix of Long Beach track.
“I love driving race cars there,” he said about Long Beach, “and there’s scary moments but in general, I love doing it.”
Al Unser Jr’s Valvoline No. 3 car, here running the straight down Shoreline during the 1988 win, was the rode he he had in all six of his Long Beach wins. (File photo)
When Unser Jr. first staked his claim as King of the Beach, one could argue it was thanks to the racing equivalent of attempted regicide – though unintentionally.
During the 1988 Grand Prix, Unser Jr. accidentally ran into the back of fellow legendary racer and four-time Grand Prix winner Mario Andretti, who, at the time, held the King of the Beach title.
“I was so upset with myself,” Unser Jr. said last year. “I had a lack of patience. I was being too aggressive and I made a huge mistake by running into the back of him.”
But Unser Jr. still won the Grand Prix that year – two days shy of his 26th birthday. Then he won again the next year. And again in 1990. And once more in 1991.
Those four straight victories – out of six total – secured his claim to the Long Beach throne.
And outwardly, he enjoyed it.
Each year, he stayed in the luxurious Hyatt in downtown Long Beach. After his first win, artist Robert Wyland invited him to help paint a portion of the famous whale mural that adorns the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center. The fans loved him.
And Unser Jr. loved Southern California.
“The culture is an automotive culture and so racing is part of that culture,” Unser Jr.said in an interview earlier this month. “(So is) all that sunshine, of course. It’s all part of it.”
Life seemed good for the King of the Beach during that era. He won the Grand Prix of Long Beach again in 1994 and 1995. He also won the Indianapolis 500 in 1992 and 1994.
But that success belied Unser Jr.’s personal struggles.
For years, his personal engine was in the red.
Unser Jr. is a child of “the Mother Road” – Route 66.
His grandfather, Jerry Unser Sr., first put down roots in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1935, building the family’s home and a filling station along Route 66.
Unser Jr.’s father, four-time Indy 500 winner Al Unser Sr., and three uncles grew up there.
In the 1940s, the family operated a wrecking service near their home. The original filling station grew into Unser Garage, which boasted a set-up to rebuild engines, a foreign car parts fabrication shop and an automotive service center.
The family compound became known as Unserville.
By the time Unser Jr. came around, on April 19, 1962, the family had already begun making a name for itself in racing.
The Unser legacy continued growing in the following decades. The family has a record nine Indy 500 wins combined. Brothers Al Unser Sr. and Bobby Unser, and Al Unser Jr. won a combined 108 open-wheel races.
And so the future King of the Beach was born a prince – in a city that those in racing circles affectionately called “The Land of Unserville.”
Unser Jr. seemed poised to carry on his family’s legacy at an early age. He was 9 years old when he began taking to the track at Route 66 Karting in Albuquerque. By 11, he had graduated to sprint-car racing.
“I was a natural in the kart,” Unser Jr. said last year. “I became a race car driver – just like my dad.”
But Unser Jr.’s addictions also began early.
Unser Jr. first smoked marijuana with cousin Bobby Unser Jr. before he was even a teenager, a self-admitted stoner.
In 1982, not long before Unser Jr. turned 20, his cousin was jailed for driving under the influence.
That same year, tragedy hit the family. Debbie Unser died in a dune buggy accident in 1982, becoming the second family member to perish in a vehicle-related incident, after Unser Jr.’s uncle, Jerry Unser Jr., died during a practice run at the 1959 Indy 500.
Unser Jr., though, didn’t deal with those traumas until decades later. He didn’t have time. He had races to win.
And win he did.
In 1986, he won the International Race of Champions at just 24 years old. He also won the 24 Hours of Daytona race in 1986 and 1987. A year after that, he claimed his first CART championship – and his first Grand Prix of Long Beach.
But during this time, he was also a hard-partying addict. He smoked weed. He snorted cocaine. He emptied alcohol bottles.
And he battled personal demons.
That period of his life, he wrote in his 2021 memoir, “Al Unser Jr.: A Checkered Past,” was a “private hell.” Just a week after the 1992 Grand Prix of Long Beach, which he led for 54 laps, he contemplated suicide, he wrote in his memoir.
His life was spiraling so much that by 1995, his loved ones were planning an intervention. But then he won his sixth Grand Prix of Long Beach – and the intervention was shelved.
But it may not have mattered.
“Honestly,” he said earlier this month about whether an intervention would have helped, “it wouldn’t have at that point in my life. I had things under control and all that kind of stuff so they could have done it and no, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
Indeed, nothing changed. Not until he found a new home, a new love and a new faith.
Unser Jr. and his wife, Norma Unser, arrived in downtown Long Beach on Thursday and took a stroll along the Motorsports Walk of Fame on Pine Avenue.
They stopped at the bronze plaque that’s had Unser Jr. name etched into it since 2009.
Unser Jr., who retired in 2004, said before the couple arrived that he was excited to show his wife all the landmarks he associates with his favorite Long Beach memories: The Hyatt where he stayed during his career. The Wyland mural, a small portion of which he helped paint. The Queen Mary.
And, of course, the Walk of Fame.
This trip, after all, was Norma Unser’s first to Long Beach.
At the Walk of Fame, Norma Unser lay down next to her husband’s plaque, posing for a photo.
“I finally got here,” she said about her thoughts at that moment. “I finally got to see it.”
Norma Unser sees her husband’s medallion on the Motorsports Walk of Fame for the first time on Thursday, Apr. 18, 2024, in downtown Long Beach. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)
Unser Jr.’s 2009 induction into the Motorsports Walk of Fame came after several tough years – with a couple of more looming.
He had divorced his wife of nearly 20 years in 2001, and a month later, while in Las Vegas, he met the woman who would become his second wife – for about a dozen years. He became estranged from his four children.
And he kept drinking.
In January 2007, Unser Jr. was involved in a car crash in Nevada, for which he ultimately pleaded no contest to a driving-under-the-influence charge.
Two years after he was inducted into the Motorsports Walk of Fame, he was charged with drunken and reckless driving in New Mexico, with Albuquerque authorities saying he was traveling at more than 100 mph while drag racing.
He had stints in rehab centers and tried Alcoholics Anonymous – but nothing seemed to work.
Then, in October 2017, Unser Jr. tried a change of scenery, leaving Albuquerque for Indianapolis to work for the Harding Racing team. He moved near his mother, who has lived there for more than three decades.
But two years later, in May 2019, Unser Jr. was arrested again for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
“I’ve had several rock bottoms,” Unser Jr. said last year. “All my DUIs were famous; the May 19 incident in Indianapolis, that was the end of it.”
He’s been sober ever since, Unser Jr. said.
All of that, though, happened before Unser Jr. met Norma Lawrence. The couple met through church friends and married on Sept. 30, 2021, a day before his memoir came out.
Their relationship, which Unser Jr. details in a new chapter in updated paperback and audio versions of his memoir that will be out in May, has provided him with strength and stability in recent years, even as the personal losses piled up.
Both his father and uncle Bobby Unser died in 2021. And money has been tight, despite the book’s success. They were unable to afford to attend the Grand Prix of Long Beach last year, though they sought sponsors to pay for the trip.
Despite those struggles, Unser Jr. seems content.
“Things are really good in my life right now,” Unser Jr. said recently, “and honestly, Norma has so much to do with that.”
His faith has also helped Unser Jr. And it’s helped his willingness to share the details of his life, from King of the Beach to addict – even when some people, including his mother, cautioned him against sharing so much in his memoir.
“If we can help one person with substance use disorder, then it’s worth me going and telling the truth about my personal life,” Unser Jr. said. “And now my mom comes up to me and she says how proud she is of me.”
The racing community has also been accepting, Unser Jr. said.
Take Mike Lashmett, for example. Lashmett is the founder of Vintage Indy and five years ago, he brought Unser Jr. into the organization. Despite Unser Jr.’s past issues with sobriety, Lashmett said, the sponsors never questioned bringing him on — and neither did Lashmett himself.
“I believed in him,” Lashmett said. “I never gave it a second thought.”
The opportunity has allowed Unser Jr. to rejoin the racing community.
The King of the Beach is an unassuming monarch.
If you saw him meandering through the Grand Prix concourse this week, it’d be easy to shrug him off as just another racing fan. There’s no pomp, no desire for adulation.
But that doesn’t mean he’s unapproachable – far from it.
After visiting the Walk of Fame on Thursday, for example, Unser Jr. and his wife joined the Grand Prix’s media luncheon.
Norma Unser sat to her husband’s right. One seat over sat Rome Charpentier, a 37-year-old Super Drift Challenge driver from Rancho Cucamonga.
Charpentier told Unser Jr. that he’d been coming to the Grand Prix of Long Beach since he was a newborn – unaware he was talking to the record holder.
“You drive IndyCars?” Charpentier asked his table-mate.
“Well, yeah, I used to,” Unser Jr. replied.
Charpentier asked Unser Jr. for his full name.
“Oh, my God,” Charpentier said. “You were my mom’s favorite race car driver.”
Charpentier pulled out his phone and called his mom on FaceTime. His mom quickly pulled out a hat signed by Unser Jr. She hustled to the garage and came back with a framed photo of the King of the Beach.
After the call ended, Charpentier and Unser Jr. kept chatting, with the retired pro giving the relative upstart career advice and even signing a shirt for him.
Then, Unser Jr. took off his Indy 500 ring – given to the winners of that race – and showed it to Charpentier.
Long Beach is the only dominion Unser Jr. has left.
He makes his home near Indianapolis, sure – but at best, he’s a minor noble there. While Unser Jr. won that iconic race twice, 10 different drivers have claimed the checkered flag at least three times.
And then there’s his ancestral kingdom, Albuquerque, the Land of Unserville.
But Unserville is no more.
Unser Jr.’s father is dead. His uncles and sister are dead. None of the blue-blood racing family’s legends, in fact, remain in Albuquerque.
And last spring, the Unser Museum, long operated by Al Unser Sr.’s widow, Susan, shuttered. All the memorabilia – the cars, the jackets, the helmets – was shipped to Lincoln, Nebraska, where the American Museum of Speed is building an Unser wing.
But Unser Jr. does not seem bothered by it.
“Dad and Uncle Bobby, they argued over the museum,” he said, “and so none of Uncle Bobby’s personal memorabilia was in the Unser Museum.”
That won’t be the case when the American Museum of Speed opens its new wing later this year.
“They’ve acquired Uncle Bobby’s personal memorabilia and then also mine and my dad’s,” Unser Jr. said. “So for the first time, the Unser family’s personal memorabilia is under one roof and so it’s really good.”
And so, the Unser family’s Albuquerque dynasty has collapsed.
But Long Beach remains. And Long Beach remembers.
Ninety seconds.
That’s how long each trip in the pace car lasts.
For Unser Jr., it’s a job. He gets in, paces the vintage race cars, gets out.
He hasn’t even seemed nostalgic about being back on the Long Beach track, shrugging off questions this week about what it’s been like.
Unser Jr. did his job on Saturday. There was no announcement ahead of the initial historic challenge race that a legend was in the pace car. The small crowd didn’t seem to recognize him. Unser Jr. got in the car, drove around for 90 seconds and then got out.
Then he scampered off to a secluded area to get away from the chaos of the Grand Prix. Fine with going unnoticed.
Friday’s practice run — which took place on his 62nd birthday — started the same way. The crowd was slightly larger, but most fans were keyed on the vintage cars.
Then, someone realized the pace car driver looked familiar. Murmurs spread through the crowd. It’s Al Unser Jr, they said. It’s the King of the Beach.
When he exited the pace car, the crowd cheered. Fans approached him, asking for autographs and photos.
For a moment with their king.
He obliged.
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