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The 1987 Indy 500 certaintly had one of the more interesting finishes, if not a competitive race in general. In fact, until lap 177, there was no competition as Mario Andretti - in the most dominant performance seen since the field started bunching up under cautions in 1979 - simply crushed the field. Mario - who had started from the pole position -led at will, comanding 170 of the first 177 laps before engine failure sidelined him. That turned the lead over to Roberto Guerrero, with Al Unser running second, a lap behind Roberto.
After Mario dropped out, Guerrero still had to make his last pitstop, but everything looked good for him, as he had just lapped Unser before his last pitstop - he should have been able to keep the lead with no problem. But earlier in the race Guerrero had hit a tire that had come off another car - Roberto couldn’t avoid it and punted the tire into the stands where it killed spectator Lyle Kurtenbach. Although he was able to keep going in the race, they were unaware that the clutch cylinder - stored in the nose of the car - was damaged from the impact. This would be the deciding factor in the race as due to the clutch problem, Roberto stalled his engine on his last pitstop. It took several tries to get him going again by which time not only had Unser made up his lap, but he had taken the lead and lapped Guerrero with only 18 laps to go in the race! Although Guerrero was able to unlap himself and close in on Unser during a late race caution, he was unable to challenge Unser in the closing laps. Al won a record tying fourth Indianapolis 500, and in leading the last 18 laps, tied him with Ralph Depalma (winner 1915) for leading the most laps in a career - a record that Unser broke the following year.
