Unlucky 13 start for $20 million man.

Though he starts at the Homestead-Miami Speedway at 13th on the grid it's hardly been an unlucky career for Al Unser Jr who has just surpassed the $20 million race winnings mark.

The $20-million man, Al Unser Jr, starts the 2002 Indy Racing League
season Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway as the first and only American
open-wheel driver to have topped the $20 million mark in career winnings.

Unser is the all-time CART leader with $18,828,406 in earnings, but that total does not include the $1,624,825 he has collected over the past two seasons driving in the IRL.

His grand total heading into the 20th Anniversary Grand Prix of Miami is $20,453,231.
Unser's winnings have come in 295 starts, his first being at the former Riverside, California road course in 1982. If Unser starts the season's first four IRL events - Miami, Phoenix, Fontana, and Nazareth, - and qualifies for his 15th Indianapolis 500 start, he will take the green flag in his 300th top-level open-wheel event at Indy.

Al Unser, his father and Indy Racing League driving coach, started 321 races over 30 seasons. But because of the difference in purses during his career his winnings totaled a mere $6,740,843.

Michael Andretti, who will return this season for his second straight Indianapolis 500, is second all-time in earnings at $18,055,594. The $346,225 he received for placing third in last year's Indianapolis 500 helped push his total past the $18-million plateau.