Fiftieth Anniversary of Big Al’s Springfield Sweep!
By Jay Hardin
Track Enterprises
Track Enterprises celebrates 29 years of promoting races on the Springfield Mile on the weekend of August 20-21. This weekend is also a time to honor the 50th anniversary one of the great accomplishments in motorsports, the weekend sweep by the late Al Unser of both the Atlas-Allen Crowe 100 stock car race and the Bettenhausen 100 dirt car race.
In the history of the USAC and ARCA stock car series, and the USAC and CART championship series, very few “doubleheaders” since 1950 were conducted outside of the fairground miles. During the 1970’s some same day doubleheaders were scheduled at venues such as Trenton, Ontario and Texas World Speedway. However, by then the weekend doubleheaders of stock car and championship dirt car racing at Springfield and DuQuoin were well established.
Prior to 1972 no driver had won both races on the same weekend at either fairground mile, much less a scheduled doubleheader between the champ and stock cars. Coming into the 1972 Illinois State Fair, a different type of program would greet fans and competitors. Midgets were added to the card on Friday, with the upright champ cars moving from Saturday to Sunday, and the stockers moving to Saturday. When the entry lists were released, Al Unser, Jigger Sirois and Ralph Ligouri each had stock and champ car rides. A.J. Foyt likely would have been in both races, however he was still recuperating from a nasty incident on Memorial Day at DuQuoin and was sticking with his dirt champ car.
On Saturday, Unser qualified the Ford of Peoria car owner Rudy Hoerr on the pole and after swapping the lead with Jack Bowsher, Sal Tovella and Don White took over for good on lap 54 and led the rest of the way. The win put him in position to sweep, however 31 other drivers and cars stood in his way for Sunday’s Bettenhausen 100 dirt car race. Unser started 7th as Lee Kunzman started up front. Kunzman led 10 miles before Foyt moved to the front. Unser bided his time, knowing the 4 time Bettenhausen winner was just coming back from injuries. On lap 29 Unser took the Viceroy Special into the lead and never looked back. Al banked over $11,000 for the weekend.
Since that day A.J. Foyt captured a couple of stock car-champ car doubles, one at Texas, one at Ontario. But no one has done so on the dirt. A.J. Fike came closest in 2013, winning the Bettenhausen and crossing the line first in the Atlas-Crowe 100, but a penalty assessed on a restart took him out of the top slot.
Al Unser went on to win the next week on the Indiana State Fair Mile in Hoerr’s Ford. Al captured another Bettenhausen win (1975) and two more Hoosier Hundred wins (1972-73) plus two more Indy 500 wins in his storied career. He remains one of twelve drivers to attempt the Springfield sweep, and the only driver to successfully use the broom.
Fike is the last driver to try both. At press time it is questionable if anyone will try the double this year, so it is likely that Al’s remarkable accomplishment will be solely his for another year.
The state fair weekend begins with the Bettenhausen 100 on August 20 for the USAC Silver Crown cars, and ends with the ARCA Atlas 100 and Sportsman Nationals on Sunday August 21.
Advance tickets for the Illinois State Fair races are available by calling the Track Enterprises office at 217-764-3200, by calling the Illinois State Fair box office at 217-782-1979, or by stopping by the Illinois State Fair box office. Advance sale discounted tickets for the ARCA Menards Series event on Sunday, August 21 can be purchased in Central Illinois area Menards stores for a price of just $20.
(Photo from midwestracingarchives.com)