It was early February when Al Unser Jr. got the telephone call and with it the devastating news. After playing in a basketball game, his 12-year-old daughter, Cody, had collapsed and now was paralyzed from the chest down.
She had been stricken, Unser would learn, with transverse myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord triggered by what is often no more than a minor viral infection.
“It’s just a heck of a shock to look at your daughter and not know what to do,” Unser said before he began his 17th full CART season at last Sunday’s Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami. “There have been only two things on my mind since then. The first being my daughter Cody and the second getting fast enough to get a race win because we need that.”
Unser, who entered this season without a victory since Sept. 3, 1995, would not get that victory in Miami. Instead, rookie Naoki Hattori rode him into wall on the first lap to guarantee Unser’s streak of frustration would grow to 54. It also left him with two broken bones in his right ankle and torn ligaments in his left knee, sidelining him at least a month and adding to the clouds that have surrounded him since he got that devastating call.
After getting the news about his daughter he soon enrolled her in an intensive physical-therapy program at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. She started manifesting small signs of progress, but as he prepared to leave for Miami, Unser still felt guilty as he looked down on her sitting in a wheelchair. Then, proving her mettle, Cody Unser smiled up at her dad and said, “Remember. Aggressive, but safe.”
“Her strength is phenomenal,” Unser says. “She’s still paralyzed from (the chest) down. But there’s some feeling in her abs. If you put liquid on her back, she has a little bit more sensation now on her skin. But she still has no back muscles to speak of.
“It’s a long road. We’re looking at a two- to three-year rehabilitation. But if she stays where she is, according to the textbook, what the doctors say is she should be up and walking around in two to three years.”
Government whitewash: Philip Morris, which produces Marlboro, also owns the U.S. rights to the Canadian cigarette Player’s, which is why the Player’s Forsythe Racing Team was sent scrambling in November when the major tobacco companies reached their monumental agreement with the U.S. government.
As part of that agreement, each company was limited to advertising one of its brands per venue, and–for Philip Morris–that clearly meant Marlboro for the 15 CART races held in this country. That, in turn, meant the Player’s team had to get another set of uniforms without its name on it, and new paint jobs that erased its names from the cars Greg Moore and Patrick Carpentier drive.
This is why Moore swept to his triumph in Miami in a car that was as plain as any seen recently on a track, and why he expressed concern Player’s might pull back on its annual commitment to the team of $25 million to $30 million.
“For me, inside the car, it still looks the same,” he said. “But, honestly, it’s very, very difficult for them. Player’s has supported us for so long, they’ve been involved in motor sports for so many years. Without them, who knows where I’d be today.”
Quickly noted: When the Texas Motor Speedway opened in 1997, it was greeted with compliments, but drivers wailed loudly about the track surface and their criticisms only increased when seepage also became a problem. It has since been repaved and Winston Cup drivers now face a new challenge in Sunday’s Primestar 500.
“In most ways it’s like going to a brand-new race track,” says Jeremy Mayfield, who finished second last week at Darlington. “Some of what we already know about Texas could come in handy. But most of what we already know doesn’t mean a single thing anymore.” . . . The Indy Racing League returns to action with Sunday’s MCI WorldCom 200 in Phoenix, which isn’t especially good news for Indianapolis 500 champ Eddie Cheever. He was born there and says, “Sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, I’ve got a bunch of family that still lives out there. It’s by far the most expensive race I run all year because of all the tickets I have to buy to supply my family.”
Unser was released from the hospital on Wednesday, but it will be at least a month until he drives again. That leaves him definitely out of CART’s April 10 race in Japan and April 18 race in Long Beach, and his Marlboro Team Penske is looking at 26-year-old Gonzalo Rodriguez and 23-year-old Jason Leffler as possible replacements.
And finally: Not that anymore evidence is needed to prove that NASCAR is no longer a mere regional passion. But here it is. Fortune, that must-read of the nation’s CEOs, looks at stock-car racing in its current issue. Among its findings: Last year, NASCAR Barbie doll generated about $50 million in revenue and was Mattel’s hottest collectible Barbie.