Johnny Unser (born October 22, 1958) is a former race car driver. He is the son of open wheel driver Jerry Unser Jr., cousin of

Al Unser Jr. Alfred Unser Jr. (born April 19, 1962), nicknamed "Little Al", "Al Junior", or simply "Junior", is a retired American race car driver and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. History Unser was born into a racing family in Albuquerque, New Mexic ...

and

Robby Unser Robby Unser (born January 12, 1968) is an American former Indy Racing League driver and nine-time winner of the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. He was the IRL rookie of the year in 1998. Robby made two starts in the Indianapolis 500 with a best ...

, nephew of

Al Unser Alfred Unser (May 29, 1939 – December 9, 2021) was an American automobile racing driver, the younger brother of fellow racing drivers Jerry and Bobby Unser, and father of Al Unser Jr. He was the second of four men ( A. J. Foyt, himself, Rick ...

and

Bobby Unser Robert William Unser (February 20, 1934 – May 2, 2021) was an American automobile racer. At his induction into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1994, he had the fourth most IndyCar Series wins at 35 (behind his brother Al, A. J. Fo ...

, and first cousin once removed of

Alfred Unser Alfred Richard Unser (born October 23, 1982) is an American former professional race car driver. Unser has competed in the Indy Lights series and Toyota Atlantics Championship. He is the fourth generation of the famous Unser family. Al Richard U ...

. Unser's father, Jerry, died in a racing accident when Unser was seven months old. He made 5 starts in

CART A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people. It is different from the flatbed tr ...

in 1993 and 1994 with a best result of 15th. He joined the

Indy Racing League The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of ...

in its inaugural

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

season but had a transmission failure during the pace lap of what would've been his first

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

and was not credited with completing any laps. In

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

he made his first start in the Indy 500 starting in the 35th position after League and Speedway owner

Tony George Anton Hulman "Tony" George (born December 30, 1959) is the former Chairman, President, and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Hulman & Company, serving from 1989 to 2009. He was also formerly on the Board of Directors of both entities. ...

added his and

Lyn St. James Lyn St. James (born Evelyn Gene Cornwall; March 13, 1947) is an American former race car driver. She competed in the IndyCar series, with eleven CART and five Indy Racing League starts to her name. St. James is one of nine women who have qualifi ...

' car to the field because slower cars than theirs were guaranteed starting positions because of prior races. He went on to finish 18th, his best "500" result in 5 starts. Unser drove the majority of his IRL races for

Hemelgarn Racing Hemelgarn Racing is an American auto racing team owned by Ron Hemelgarn. The team debuted in 1985, and competed in the CART and Indy Racing League ranks until the team originally shut down in 2010. The team returned to competition in 2015, and cur ...

and in his 14 career IRL starts he had a best finish of 9th in his very first series start in 1996 at

Phoenix International Raceway Phoenix Raceway is a 1-mile, low-banked tri-oval race track located in Avondale, Arizona, near Phoenix. The motorsport track opened in 1964 and currently hosts two NASCAR race weekends annually including the final championship race since 2020. P ...

. His last major open wheel race was the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

Indy 500. On January 14 2008 Johnny Unser was named as the race director for the 2008

Champ Car Atlantic Championship The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

.Johnny Unser named Atlantic Race Director
TSN.ca, January 14, 2008 He is currently a driver coach and adviser to the

Mazda Road to Indy , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...

and racing adviser and spokesman for

Cooper Tire Cooper Tire & Rubber Company is an American company that specializes in the design, manufacture, marketing, and sales of replacement automobile and truck tires, and has subsidiaries that specialize in medium truck, motorcycle, and racing tires. W ...

. He is an official for

Indycar INDYCAR, LLC, is an American-based auto racing sanctioning body for Indy car racing and other disciplines of open wheel car racing. The organization sanctions five racing series: the premier IndyCar Series with its centerpiece the Indianapolis ...

in Race Control and is also the owner of Unser Racing, Karting and Entertainment track in Denver, Colorado.

Racing record

American Open Wheel

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

)

CART

IndyCar

Indianapolis 500 results

24 Hours of Le Mans results

References

External links

Johnny Unser at ChampCarStats.com
1958 births American people of Swiss-German descent 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers 24 Hours of Daytona drivers Champ Car drivers Indianapolis 500 drivers IndyCar Series drivers Living people Sportspeople from Long Beach, California Racing drivers from California Unser family {{US-autoracing-bio-stub Dale Coyne Racing drivers