My chat with Bobby Unser

Bobby Unser leads Roger McCluskey during 1969 Champ Car race at Hanford Motor Speedway. The race was the last national event held at the track.Bobby Unser was a dominant force in his three races at Hanford Motor Speedway, with an average start of 3.2 and average finish of 4.0.

Those performances included a pole in the first 1968 race, and three other Top 5 starts, and finishes of 2nd, 5th, 2nd and 7th. He drove for Bob Wilke all four races, in an Eagle-Ford in 1967 but Eagle-Offys in 1968-69.

Bobby Unser was driving this Ford V8 Rislone Special for Bob Wilke's Leader Cards Racing in the 1967 race at Hanford"We had good races there but I distinctly remember sand when we raced there," Unser told me in a telephone interview from his home in New Mexico. "It was a "big slide for life" type of deal, that's what Hanford was."

Despite strong Hanford performances that included leading 98 laps in the first 1968 race  -- the year he won the national championship -- Unser kept referring to sand on the track.

"It wasn't a good place to race on," he said. "Lots of sand would blow on the track. It  wasn't a completed race track. It needed an infusion of "finish it up."

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More photos from the 1967 Champ Car race

Here are some photos from the 1967 USAC Champ Car race at Hanford Motor Speedway. They came from the race program for the March 1968 race at Hanford, which explains the goofy cutouts and driver's name in script lettering.

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