A Memorable 500 Weekend
by A.J. Foyt
This year's race weekend in Indianapolis was one of my more
interesting ones in the 45 years I've spent at my favorite track. It
began on Friday when it was announced by General Mills that I'd be on
the Wheaties cereal box this summer. I thought that was a big honor
and to be honest, I was pretty excited about it. A lot of other people
(and not just my friends) said it was about time. I don't know about
that but it did give me a thrill.
I gave my grandson A.J. Foyt IV a thrill too when I told him that he
was going to drive in the inaugural Infiniti Pro Series this year.
That is a prep series for the Indy Racing League that was started by
IRL founder Tony George.
I had told my grandson earlier in the month that I was going to sell
the Silver Crown car and he thought he was going to be a mechanic on
the Indy car this year. He really wants to drive but he didn't say
much, he just moped around according to his momma.
I waited until his 18th birthday on Saturday to tell him about my
plans for him. He just looked at me and grinned. I know it was big
surprise. I don't like to be surprised myself, but I do like to
surprise people. That was a good one. I think he's going to do a great
job and he'll be racing against kids around his age so it will be a
good series for him. He wants to drive in Indy cars some day and this
is a big step towards that goal.
Race day for me started early. I was over in the garages by 7:15 to go
over the cars and make sure everything was the way we wanted. The cars
were not set-up the same because Greg Ray and his engineer Tom Knapp
had taken a different approach and were using a different suspension
set-up from what I had on Airton Dare's Harrah's No. 14 car.
That is not unusual in a two-car team, especially when you have
drivers that have different levels of experience. Greg is a past IRL
champion and Airton is in only his third year of driving Indy cars. It
was a big help to me to have Tom working closely with Greg because I
could concentrate more on 24-year-old Airton.
Unfortunately, Greg's day in the Harrah's/EDS No. 11 was a short one.
He started 31st and had moved up to 27th. He was concerned about the
way the car was handling, saying it was nervous in the rear end. Tom
had some things he was going to change on the first pitstop. But Greg
never made it to that first stop. The car snapped on him going into
turn one and it backed into the SAFER wall, the new foam/steel
barriers that Indy put in the corners to lessen the impact on the
drivers. It worked; Greg walked away despite the heavy damage to the
car.
That accident had a double whammy on us. Airton had worked his way
from 30th to 20th in just 10 laps and the car started pushing a
little. We brought him in on lap 28 to correct it and he was leaving
the pits when Greg had his accident. Everyone else got to pit under
caution. We actually lost a lap but got waved around the pace car so
it could pick up the leader for the restart. We had to start at the
end of the field.
Usually, when it happens that early in the race, you can make it up.
But then on the next stop, we had to come in early because I could see
on the computer that Airton had a right rear tire going down. So he
came in and lost a lap. We never were able to make that lap up because
the yellows never came when we needed them. To make things worse, we
had two sets of tires at the end that made it impossible to run over
215 mph so he gave up a lot of speed at the end.
The way our day went, I was thinking it was going to be a top-20
finish. But I never give up because I've seen things turn around in
the later stages of the race. We did end up 13th, which as my daddy
used to tell me, is better than 14th.
The good thing is that I was able to work closely with Airton all
month and I have a better feel for what he wants in a car and he has a
better feel for what I expect from him.
It's another Indy 500 in the record books but I'm not really thinking
about that. I'm focused on racing in Texas in two weeks. |
