Sneva's subsequent win is tremendously popular, and it gives chief mechanic George Bignotti an unprecedented seventh victory. But everyone is talking about "Little Al."
1984: SNEVA BREAKS 210!
Tom Sneva is the first to exceed 210 mph and breaks five track records in four laps by recording, on consecutive laps, 209.113, 209.898, 210.423 and 210.689 mph. He looks as if he might successfully defend his 1983 race win, as well, since he is running second to Rick Mears with just over 30 laps to go. The pack is "under caution" and just getting ready for restart when Sneva is forced out with a broken CV joint.
1985: SPIN AND WIN
Danny Sullivan dives low through turn one on Lap 120 to grab the lead from
Mario Andretti, only to have the tail slide out as he exits the turn. He spins around one-and-a-quarter times across the south "short chute" as Andretti dives to the inside to successfully avert a collision. Miraculously, Sullivan completely avoids hitting the wall, recovers from the spin and then makes his way around to the pits for a change of tires. None of the drivers can believe what they have seen, and tire engineers are amazed to discover the tires bear no flat spots. Twenty laps later, Sullivan passes Andretti again, in exactly the same place, and this time is successful. He is famously the first ever to "spin and win."
1986: RAHAL'S EMOTIONAL WIN
Kevin Cogan has recently passed both Rick Mears and Bobby Rahal and is leading under a late-race caution period when the green flag comes out for a sprint to the finish with only two laps to go. Rahal gets a better restart and beats Cogan into Turn 1. Mears hangs with both of them and they take the chequered flag only 1.27 seconds apart for by far the closest 1-2-3 finish ever. There is plenty of emotion because Rahal's car owner, Jim Trueman, is extremely ill. He spends the entire race in his pit but is too sick to attend a celebratory parade in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and he passes away only 11 days after the race.
1987: THE 500 IS WON BY . A "SHOW" CAR?!
Roberto Guerrero is leading when he makes his final scheduled pit stop at Lap 182. But there is a problem with his master cylinder, and he stalls. Into the lead goes Al Unser, who wasn't even sure he would be driving in this race. He had been replaced on the Roger Penske team by Danny Ongais, but when Ongais sustained a concussion in an accident during practice, Al was invited to rejoin colleagues Rick Mears and Danny Sullivan. Because this pair has already determined that the 1986 chassis are performing better than the new ones, there is a scramble to find an '86 for Al. He qualifies on the final weekend with a chassis retrieved from a display in the lobby of a Pennsylvania hotel.
