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The 71st Indianapolis 500 was held Sunday May 24, 1987 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After dominating practice, qualifying, and most of the race, leader Mario Andretti slowed with mechanical problems with only 23 laps to go. Five laps later, Al Unser, Sr. assumed the lead, and won his record-tying fourth Indianapolis 500 victory. During the month of May, an unusually high 25 crashes occurred during practice and qualifying, with one driver in particular, Jim Crawford, suffering serious leg injuries. Unser's victory is considered one of the biggest upsets in Indy 500 history. Unser entered the month of May without a ride and without sponsorship money, which left him on the sidelines for the first week of practice. After Danny Ongais suffered a concussion in a practice crash, Unser was hired by Penske to fill the vacant seat. Unser proceeded to win the race with a year-old March chassis, and the venerable Cosworth DFX, the powerplant's tenth consecutive Indy victory. Unser's car, originally entered as a back-up, had been sitting in a hotel lobby in Reading, Pennsylvania as a show car just weeks prior. The race was sanctioned by USAC, and was included as part of the 1987 CART PPG Indy Car World Series. Of the notable statistics, the 1987 Indy 500 was the first such where the entry list did not include a single car built in the United States.〔"The Legends of the Brickyard" - 1987 Indy 500〕 During the race, a spectator was killed when an errant tire was hit into the grandstand, the first spectator fatality at the event in a racing-related incident since 1938. ==Background== Defending Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal went on to win the 1986 CART championship. During the offseason, his Truesports racing team made a highly publicized switch from the March chassis to the up-and-coming Lola chassis. Truesports, however, stayed with the proven Cosworth engine. Rahal was a strong favorite to repeat as winner. For 1987, the Ilmor Chevrolet Indy V-8 began expanding its participation into Indy car racing. Penske Racing fielded a three-car effort with the powerplant, while resuming its in-house chassis program. The PC-16 chassis was the primary car for the team, but as a backup, three 1986 March chassis were also entered. Newman Haas Racing joined the Ilmor Chevrolet program, and Mario Andretti scored the engine's first victory a month earlier at Long Beach. Patrick Racing (Fittipaldi & Cogan) was the third team to utilize the Ilmor Chevrolet. Roberto Guerrero won the second race of the season, held at Phoenix. Guerrero was a rising star on the circuit, and the impressive victory at Phoenix made him an favorite for Indy. For 1987, his Vince Granatelli team was sporting a special paint job, a "throwback" day-glow orange which resembled the Andy Granatelli entries from the late 1960s and early 1970s. A new powerplant arrived at Indy in 1987. The Judd AV V-8 was badged as the Brabham-Honda, and was fielded by Galles Racing. Brabham and rookie Jeff MacPherson were the drivers. During the offseason at Penske Racing, three-time Indy winner (1970, 1971, 1978), and three-time national champion (1970, 1983, 1985) Al Unser, Sr. retired from full-time driving duties. Businessman and media mogul Ted Field arranged a deal with Roger Penske to field Indy veteran Danny Ongais in the third Penske entry. Unser, Sr. was unable to secure a ride before the month of May, and arrived at the track unemployed. Goodyear arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time with a new radial tire. After a few years of development in the CART series, the radials were ready for competition in the Indy 500. The most noticeable construction project completed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a series of electronic dot matrix scoreboards installed around the track. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1987 Indianapolis 500」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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