SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL; Little Al takes Texas.(Racing)(Al Unser Jr. wins at Texas Motor Speedway)

Byline: CURT CAVIN

Tony Kanaan had race leader Al Unser Jr. pinned to the inside, a place where most Indy Racing League drivers have found defeat on the last lap of these spectacular shootouts on tracks like Texas Motor Speedway. But Unser has been squeezed before.

A year ago he lost here in similar fashion to the charging Jeff Ward. The spread was a scant 0.0111 second, a distance of a few feet. A month later, Unser was arrested in Indianapolis in a domestic abuse situation that nearly cost him his Indy car ride in the court of public opinion. Charges were never filed.

While the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner was helpless against Ward, he helped himself against an addiction to alcohol. He entered a rehabilitation center in Connecticut, and when he returned to the Indy Racing League following a two-race break, he was thinner, more refreshed and intensely focused. He insists he has not had a drink since.

This time Unser was plenty cool when Kanaan pulled alongside him on the final first-turn trip through the Bombardier 500. He held his line and waited to drag race Kanaan down the backstretch, where Unser felt his Toyota engine was stronger than Kanaan's Honda. By the time they motored off the fourth turn, Unser was bearing down on his 34th Indy car win, his third in the IRL. The final margin was 0.081 second, the eighth-closest finish in league history (about two car-lengths), and something of a breather for Unser.

But the former CART champ downplayed his personal comeback. "Any victory is very, very sweet,'' he said. Kanaan admitted he didn't have much confidence in being able to overhaul Unser. He had tried once before, on lap 187, and got his nose just ahead at the start/finish line. But he didn't have the strength to hold it. "The outside line was a little slower tonight,'' he said.

While the last lap was another Texas thriller, the race fell ...