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Richmond
By A.J. Foyt
 Going
into the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway
Saturday night, I thought we might have a pretty good race and I was
right. A.J. IV drove a good, hard race in the Conseco car to finish
11th which matched his best finish in the Indy cars.
Last year at Richmond, he ran well in the race until he went for a
hole that disappeared before he got there. Even though he crashed (for
the last time in 2003 as it turned out), he looked very competitive so
I knew it was a good track for him.
We didn't test at Richmond so when it started raining during our first
practice on Friday, we knew it was going to be tough to get a handle
on the car. A lot of teams were in the same boat. The rain eventually
stopped and we did get a little more time before we had to qualify.
 Still,
qualifying didn't go well. We had a problem with the engine's rev
limiter and it kicked off a couple cylinders, so A.J. IV ran on six
instead of eight cylinders. The engine sounded really flat during the
run and I figured it had soured.
We figured out afterwards that A.J. IV should have shifted gears and
it would have helped a little bit. Unfortunately he didn't realize
what the problem was because it never happened before. It's a tough
track to shift gears anyway because it's so fast: 16-17 seconds per
lap! Drivers are very busy.
Once we figured out what the problem was, I told my crew to stop
changing the engine. We made some changes to the chassis which helped
the handling; in the final practice he was running 12th when we
stopped. Several cars passed him right at the end but he liked the way
the Conseco car was handling so it was a good time to stop. Last year
I think four cars wrecked in the final three minutes! Things happen
very fast at Richmond so it's hard to avoid other people's mistakes.
That was still true Saturday night. There were several accidents where
guys banged wheels and the guy on the receiving end was innocent but
also out of the race. Fortunately, A.J. IV wasn't among them.
He started 21st and ran hard all night. He was passing cars all night
too. In fact some of the cars he passed finished ahead of him because
they used a different fuel strategy and got yellows when they needed
them. We haven't been too lucky in that area recently so we just went
with the standard strategy of pitting with the leaders.
We did have one bad pitstop where the right rear tire came off. He
didn't get too far and the Conseco crew pushed him back to the pit
stall. It cost us a position in the race and track position too (he
re-started last). But it happened under yellow so it wasn't as bad as
it could have been.
My son Larry was spotting for A.J. IV and he came over the radio to
relay that news to A.J. IV. He knows how frustrating a bad stop can be
for a driver (especially when you've driven your butt off and you come
out tail-end Charlie on the field). By letting A.J. IV know he didn't
lose that much, Larry relieved some of the frustration.
Larry is a big help as a spotter but he is pretty anxious to get back
behind the wheel himself. He is going to help out again by spotting
next weekend in Kansas. He'll be back in the cockpit soon though.
He'll test his stock car at Indy in mid-July in preparation for the
Brickyard 400.
Overall, I was happy with the way the race went. Some things could
have been better and other things could have turned out a lot worse.
We finished without a problem and that's something we hadn't done
since Phoenix in March so it felt good. We needed that.
We head to Kansas this weekend which is where A.J. IV won his first
Infiniti Pro Series race in 2002. I am expecting everything to go
smooth with the Conseco Indy car. I'm sure my crew is hoping I stay
cool in the hot Kansas sun and the only fireworks they see are those
celebrating Fourth of July.
So tune into ABC this Sunday at 12:30 eastern time. After the race you
can head out to catch those Fourth of July fireworks! |
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