"This is beginning to feel like the old days," said Unser, the former open-wheel star who works as a driver coach and mentor for the IndyCar Series. "I like what's happening here."
He's not alone.
From the moment it was announced in February that the long-awaited unification of America's two open-wheel series was at hand, good things began to happen in IndyCar, which absorbed the remaining drivers and teams from the defunct Champ Car World Series.
Fields that had shrunk to 17 or 18 cars in both series during their 12-year rivalry suddenly blossomed to 27 or 28. Crowds got bigger at the tracks. TV numbers began to increase. Potential sponsors started to return phone calls from the parent IRL and the IndyCar teams. And newspapers and Web sites around the country began to use more and longer stories about open-wheel, a sport that had become the stepchild of racing at the same time NASCAR was growing into a mainstream behemoth.
"We've got a lot more work to do," said Unser, a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. "But now people are taking us seriously again."
Beyond good news on the business side of the sport, the bar was also raised on the competitive side, thanks to the bigger and stronger fields.
The transition drivers had their moments, despite being handicapped with cars that were totally new to them and that the holdover IndyCar teams had been developing for years.
Still, the newcomers had their moments.
Graham Rahal won his IndyCar debut at St. Petersburg after missing the opener at Homestead because of a crash that left the 19-year-old briefly without a car. Rahal, the son of three-time national champion and 1986 Indy winner Bobby Rahal, held off veteran Helio Castroneves in a dramatic late-race restart to become the youngest American open-wheel winner ever.
Graham Rahal's Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing teammate, Englishman Justin Wilson, also found Victory Lane, winning at Detroit's Belle Isle while also holding off Castroneves.
If Castroneves finishing second seems like a theme, it was.
The Brazilian finished second eight times in 17 races and also wound up as the runner-up to 2008 series champion Scott Dixon.
"Sometimes, I just wondered if there was no other place to finish," Castroneves said, chuckling. "It seemed like, no matter what I did or how good my car was, I was second."
Meanwhile, Dixon, driving for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, was having a career season.
He won a record-tying six races, including his first Indy 500, and wound up with 14 top-five finishes.
But the New Zealander, whose only previous title came as an IndyCar rookie in 2003 and who lost the 2007 championship to Dario Franchitti when he ran out of fuel on the last lap of the last race a year ago, didn't run away with his second title.
Castroneves wouldn't let him.
The Team Penske driver finished the season with six consecutive finishes of first or second, including winning two of the last three races. He beat Dixon in the finale last Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway by one foot in a photo finish and lost the championship by just 17 points.
"Helio made it even more memorable to win this championship," Dixon said. "He and those Team Penske guys kept up the pressure, so that just makes it a little sweeter to win it."
Castroneves, a two-time Indy 500 winner who has yet to win a series championship, immediately began thinking about next year.
"Hopefully, next year we start like that and finish just a little bit better in the championship," he said. "But this was an awesome season. I have nothing that I would have done different."
Former series champions Tony Kanaan and Dan Wheldon finished third and fourth in the standings, while Ryan Briscoe, Castroneves' teammate, wound up fifth. Kanaan won once, while Wheldon and Briscoe each had two victories.
Fan favorite Danica Patrick, who broke through in Japan for her first career victory, was sixth.
Ryan Hunter-Reay, who gave Rahal Letterman Racing its first win since 2004, finished eighth, while Hideki Mutoh, who drives for Andretti Green Racing, was 10th in the points and took Rookie of the Year honors.
Among the drivers who moved to IndyCar from Champ Car, Oriol Servia had the most consistent season, finishing ninth in the standings.
"At times, it was very frustrating," said Servia, a Spaniard who drives for KV Racing Technology. "But everybody on this team worked so hard and so long, and we had some success. Now, with this year behind us, some time to test and develop the car, we're going to be much stronger next year.
"The whole series is going to be stronger," Servia added.
There are going to be some changes in 2009.
Dario Franchitti, who won Indy and the 2007 title with Andretti Green Racing, is returning to IndyCar as Dixon's teammate on the Ganassi team after a frustrating season in NASCAR, where he struggled before losing his primary sponsor and having the team closed down. He replaces Wheldon, another former AGR champion who is moving to Panther Racing after failing to contend for the championship this year.
Toronto, which was a staple of the CART/Champ Car schedule for years, will return in 2009, while Homestead-Miami Speedway will switch from the season-opener to the finale. The race at Surfers Paradise in Australia, which will be run as a non-points event in October, is not on the schedule next year
The series, which still hopes to name a title sponsor before next season, will also change its TV package, moving at least 13 races from ABC/ESPN to the Versus cable channel, best known as the home of the NHL and the Tour de France. ABC will still broadcast five races, including the Indy 500.
But it's the promise of even better competition on track that is exciting to everyone connected with IndyCar.
"To be honest, next year's going to be even harder," Dixon said. "So (I'm) definitely extremely happy with winning the first unified (championship), even though those (transition) guys probably aren't up to their optimum speed yet. But I expect they will be next year and I'm looking forward to that."
So are a lot of other people.
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