INDIANAPOLIS - There are many who consider the 1992 Indy 500 the greatest of all the races that have run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway over the past 100 years.

Canada’s Scott Goodyear finished second in that race, .043 seconds behind winner Al Unser Jr., after starting the race in the 33rd and final position.

This is the story of that race in Goodyear’s own words:

“They say winning the Indy 500 changes your life. I think for me finishing second in 1992 changed my life. Realistically I looked at it as a positive. For a couple of reasons.

“Number one, I didn’t do ovals in training at all. I went up through the Formula Ford ranks and Formula Atlantic and all that stuff did not have oval racing. I never had the opportunity to race in ovals. My first real oval experience was testing the IndyCar at Phoenix in January of 1990, my rookie season doing the full CART year and getting to Indy.

“So when I got to Indy in ‘92, it was probably my 12th to 14th oval race in my life. I did not have the knowledge or experience of really what to do with a car on an oval to properly take advantage of getting past Al.

“As I say that, I’m sitting in my office and I have a picture of the finish where his rear wheels are going across (the finish line) and my front wheels are going across at the same time.

“The neat thing about that though is coming from 33rd and the extreme cold conditions. And probably starting 33rd was lucky. If you remember, (Roberto) Guerrero spun the car and he was on the pole.

“Just before that happened, I was in the back, so I got extra room. I’m warming the tires up, and the car stood up from underneath me. Obviously we had a lot of horsepower back then compared to now. And I got on the radio and said to (team owner) Derek Walker: ‘I can’t believe how cold this track is. I can’t even get the tires warm, and we’re coming up to the start.’

“Two laps later, Guerrero spun. And Derek comes on the radio and says, ‘Is that you? Is that you?’ I said ‘What, what?’ He said ‘There is a yellow.’ And I saw what happened. I said, ‘No, somebody’s spun off inside the wall.’

“From that point onwards, I thought I’m going to take my time. I’m not going to be as aggressive on the starts as I usually would, and people were just sort of running around in front of me. I knew we had a good car. Probably didn’t know how to take advantage of it, and years later I certainly did.

“On the other side of that, Junior had many years of oval experience, and he had been there since 1983 so I guess I just went to school in that race.

“I thought I had a good run off of Turn 3 on the final lap and his car moved a little bit. I thought here’s an opportunity to pass him.

“When I go back and look at it I was searching around for grip. The car was sliding, and I didn’t know enough how to handle the car going to (turn) three, to get a good run coming out of four.

“It’s ironic. I do some work in the automotive business, and we just hired Al Jr. two months ago to come work on our program with us. He and I got to spend a few days riding back and forth to the track, and we touched on so many different things.

“We talked about ‘92, and we laughed about it. I just saw him the other day riding on a scooter and I was coming up behind him on a golf cart. I yelled to him and I do this all the time. I go, ‘Objects in your mirror are closer than they appear.’ “He knew exactly who it was right away and he turned around and laughed. That’s what we talk about all the time. He says: ‘I looked in my mirror and all I could see was the blue and silver, and I thought oh, man I think I’ve blown it.’

“I love to kid him about it.”

BEST INDY DRIVERS EVER

(The greatest 33 IndyCar drivers of all time as determined by fan balloting at Indianapolis Motor Speedway)

Row 1

1. A.J. Foyt

2. Rick Mears

3. Al Unser

Row 2

4. Bobby Unser

5. Helio Castroneves

6. Johnny Rutherford

Row 3

7. Mario Andretti

8. Wilbur Shaw

9. Bill Vukovich

Row 4

10. Emerson Fittipaldi

11. Al Unser Jr.

12. Louis Meyer

Row 5

13. Mauri Rose

14. Parnelli Jones

15. Gordon Johncock

Row 6

16. Arie Luyendyk

17. Rodger Ward

18. Jim Clark

Row 7

19. Dario Franchitti

20. Tom Sneva

21. Bobby Rahal

Row 8

22. Mark Donohue

23. Michael Andretti

24. Ralph DePalma

Row 9

25. Ray Harroun

26. Tommy Milton

27. Danny Sullivan

Row 10

28. Graham Hill

29. Dan Gurney

30. Jim Rathmann

Row 11

31. Juan Pablo Montoya

32. Tony Bettenhausen

33. Scott Dixon