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 A
First Time for Everything
By A.J. Foyt
There's a first time for everything even when you've been racing for
as long as I have. This past Sunday at Pikes Peak International
Raceway, it was having the Radisson 225 Indy car race red-flagged
because of hail. That's right, a hail storm in the middle of the race.
I remember a blinding snow squall at the one mile fairgrounds oval in
Trenton, N.J. calling a halt to the champ car race just past the
halfway mark (I won in my roadster). I also won a midget race at Ascot
Park in Gardena, Calif. because when the fog rolled in you couldn't
see the front of your car on the front straightaway.
But hail stones? That was a first for me.
Pikes Peak International Raceway (or PPIR) is a flat, one-mile oval
outside of Colorado Springs; it has always been a tricky track to
figure out. This year the schedule was shortened from three days to
two, which meant you had less time to do it. The track sits a mile
above sea level which means thinner air and more challenges for the
engine builders to make the engine work efficiently in those
circumstances.
The wind there can be terrible. It not only makes the car dance
around, it can also play havoc with the rev limiter on the engine. Too
much of a tailwind can set off the rev limiter which is designed to
cut the revs off at a certain limit. The car loses power and momentum.
The rev limiter is one way that the Indy Racing League controls the
speed of the Indy cars.
With the way PPIR is built, you can have a great tailwind down the
front straight and an awful headwind going up the back straight.
Driving into a strong headwind is like trying to drive with the brakes
on. It is hard to engineer a car for those kinds of conditions.
In the Harrah's camp, we believed we had a good race set-up. We missed
on the qualifying set-up due to the gusting winds during qualifying.
Airton qualified the No. 14 in 14th and Greg qualified the No. 11 in
17th. They started a position higher because Billy Boat's car was
penalized for failing to pass the post-qualifying inspection and was
sent to the rear.
In the race, it became apparent that what worked for Ray in the final
practice (he was fourth quickest) was not working in the race. He
didn't gain any spots and was struggling to hold on to what he had. He
and his engineer Tom Knapp kept working with the car and finally got
it running pretty good towards the end. With about 25 laps to go,
however, an oil fitting broke and he was out for the day. He finished
18th.
 Airton was going better but not great. He could catch up to cars but
when he tried to make the pass, his car pushed so bad (the front
pushes out to the wall) that he'd lose positions. He hung around 12th
for the first half of the race and broke into the top-10 in the final
stint. He finished ninth for his second straight top-10 finish. He is
still eighth in the standings.
Gil de Ferran won his first IRL race and he did it by dominating in
the Marlboro car, which he had tested at PPIR earlier this year.
Sunday's race was the kind of race that you are happy when you can
roll your cars back into the truck. I heard more than one team owner
say that this past weekend.
A couple of notes on the family. My son Larry did a great job
qualifying fifth in the No. 14 Harrah's Chevrolet for the NASCAR Busch
race at Kentucky Speedway. Unfortunately, he spun and hit the wall
trying to avoid someone else's accident and never got to the finish
the race.
 Talking about a first time for everything, my grandson A.J. IV is
starting to experience just that. He had his first interview with a
writer from the USA Today newspaper before the race and then during
the red flag, he was interviewed on ABC-TV by Jack Arute about his
upcoming debut in the Infiniti Pro Series. To top off his day, when we
flew home in my private jet, he sat in the co-pilot's seat and tried
his hand at the controls for a moment.
I look back on all that I have done, the experiences I've had and I
wouldn't trade any of it. But then I look at Larry and A.J. IV who are
just starting out and I have to admit, I'm a little jealous.
They have so many "firsts" to look forward to. |
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