Rick Mears 1989 Laguna Seca Poster

Rick Mears was an oval master but won on road courses enough times to show that he was embracing CART’s diverse array of tracks. By the time of his horrendous Sanair shunt in 1984 that shattered his feet, he had scored 19 Indy car wins of which seven had come on road courses, at a time when there were precious few on the CART calendar. That said, he had recognized there was work still to do, but he was doing it: the race before Sanair was at Mid-Ohio, and he qualified on the front row. But losing the tail-end of ’84 and the entire ’85 season (in terms of road courses) and still recuperating from the shattered feet, Mears initially struggled for outright pace on road and street courses in ’86 and ’87.

Then Penske hired former Lola designer Nigel Bennett, the team’s self-built chassis became frontrunners, and the perception of Mears’ road course form now shifted. In a Penske PC17, a car that not only handled well but also provided the driver with feedback, Rick was top three in qualifying at Portland, Cleveland and Road America in 1988, and showed similar form in the PC18 of ’89.

It was the season finale in ’89, at Laguna Seca (illustrated here), when Mears converted his reemerging road course chops into success. He took pole, then on race day beat Mario Andretti and Al Unser Jr. to his first victory on a road course since Riverside seven years earlier.

Museum-quality posters made on thick matte paper.

• Paper thickness: 10.3 mil
• Paper weight: 189 g/m²
• Opacity: 94%
• ISO brightness: 104%
• Paper is sourced from Japan