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Homestead-Miami Speedway
by A.J. Foyt
 My
grandson A.J. Foyt IV drove his first Indy car race Sunday afternoon
in the Indy Racing League's season opener. He wasn't spectacular but
he drove a solid race and earned the respect of his fellow drivers.
Since he is just 18 – and the youngest driver ever to compete in the
IRL, I'm glad he made a good first impression.
Homestead-Miami Speedway is a tough track for veterans much less raw
rookies. There is no tolerance for error at that place. It is a flat,
one-groove track that gets greasy and slick, making it hard to stay in
that groove. If you get out of it, there's a good chance you'll hit
the wall. It's a tricky, unforgiving track and I don't think I've ever
come out of there without at least one wrecked car. This weekend, I
had three, but more on that later.
Young A.J. knows how miserable the place can be. He crashed there in
testing in December, in testing last month and in practice on Friday.
The last one wasn't his fault but he hit the wall just as hard. He's a
tough kid so when it was time to climb back in, he didn't hesitate. I
wouldn't have blamed him if he did though.
My crew spent most of Friday night repairing the No. 14 Conseco
Dallara so it was ready to go in Saturday's warm-up session. A.J., who
was feeling bad about the crash because he knew how hard his guys had
worked the week before to get the brand new car ready for the race,
felt better once he got back in the cockpit. He qualified later that
day at a speed of 195.660 mph which was the fastest he had gone this
weekend. He lined up 17th on the grid for the Toyota Indy 300.
As it turned out, that is where he finished but he was a different
driver by the end of that race.
He learned what it's like to go nearly 200 mph for nearly 300 miles.
He learned to do pit stops smoothly, and not get frustrated if the
crew messed up which happened on his first stop. He learned to hold
his line when getting lapped by the leaders which made them respect
and trust him. He learned that he should have his crew hook up his
water line (they asked, he refused) so that he can drink during the
race so he doesn't become dehydrated.
Most of all, he learned that he still has a lot to learn.
I think he was disappointed in himself because he did get lapped, but
that's because he's used to being the one doing the lapping. I expect
he'll get lapped again. After all, he's competing against guys who
have been racing these cars for at least a year and some as long as 20
years.
I try to impress on him that he isn't going to know it all overnight,
that he has to crawl before he walks and walk before he runs. It took
me three years to win my first Indy car race and 20 years to win four
Indy 500s.
He says he understands but he also says he wants to win five Indy
500s. I'm glad he has lofty goals and I believe he can do it.
I said before that I had three cars wrecked at Homestead-Miami
Speedway. The second incident was also in practice--in the Infiniti
Pro Series. My driver Ed Carpenter had been complaining that his
Futaba-Delphi car was tight the first day, so we made some changes for
the second day. Then the car got too loose and we worked on that.
However, we didn't change it enough because he hit the wall hard in
turn four (not far from where A.J. IV hit the day before). He came
over the radio with a simple, "Still loose."
Fortunately, he wasn't hurt but the crew had to rebuild the right
front and the back half of the car--it turned out to be worse than it
looked. Early in the race on Sunday he had a problem with the brakes
(there were none after a couple laps). I told Ed to park the car
because we would have lost so much time trying to fix it. I wanted him
to forget about this place and focus on Phoenix.
Shigeaki Hattori was making his debut on my team this weekend in the
No. 5 Epson car. He also felt the black cloud that seemed to hang over
us in the Sunshine State. Another rookie clipped him at the start of
the race and knocked off the right front wing.
After trying to repair the wing, we ended up replacing the whole nose
assembly which was taken off A.J. IV's back-up car. We lost a lot of
time in the pits so when Hattori rejoined the race, he was many laps
down.
The good news was that he only lost a lap on the track during the race
itself. Considering that he was driving a brand new car that he shook
down on Friday, I was pretty happy with his run. If he hadn't had the
problem at the start, he would have placed much higher.
I believe that black cloud with the name Foyt on it moved from Florida
to Nevada Sunday after our race because my son Larry got involved in
two accidents in the Cup race at Las Vegas, neither one of which was
his fault. It was a tough deal because I know he wanted to do well
with so many people there from Harrah's cheering him on. At least he
won't have to dwell on it because he'll be racing this weekend in
Atlanta.
Watching these kids go through this school of hard knocks isn't easy
for me but I better learn how to deal with it. I hope I can be as
tough as they are proving to be. |
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