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Japan
By A.J. Foyt
 The
race weekend in Japan was one of those character-building events. The
fact that we even made it to the grid on race day last Saturday, was
an accomplishment. Believe me there were those who thought we were
crazy for even trying.
Never give up. It's why I won races. It's why I won championships. I
think it's probably the single most important reason why I enjoyed the
success I did in my career.
 Our
weekend at Twin Ring Motegi started off pretty smoothly although I was
expecting more in the horsepower department. We were a little
disappointed because most of the Toyota cars were in the lower half of
the grid. There was an exception to that--Team Penske. Sam Hornish won
the pole and his teammate Helio Castroneves qualified fourth. Team
Penske is the only team that builds its own engines, however they are
supervised by a Toyota Racing Development engineer.
Whatever that TRD guy knows, he's not telling because the next best
qualifiers were teammates Darren Manning and Ryan Briscoe at 12th and
13th. They drive for Chip Ganassi, the factory team for TRD. A.J. IV
qualified 19th and started directly behind Scott Dixon, the third
Ganassi pilot. As tough as it is on us, I know it's a lot tougher on
those Toyota engineers. The race results weren't much better since the
top six finishers were Honda-powered. Worst of all for them, it's
happening in Japan where the executives all live.
Of course it's not just horsepower. You have to make the car handle
and we were working on improving that when A.J. Foyt IV crashed in the
final practice late Friday afternoon. The track had changed quite a
bit from qualifying because it had rained in the afternoon and had
cooled down. I found out later that a lot of drivers were complaining
about the difference in their cars' handling from the previous
practices.
It could have been the cool track, cold tires or the chassis change
I'd just made but whatever it was, A.J. IV got loose in turn four. The
14 car whipped around and he pancaked the outside wall with the left
side, then slid across and hit the inner wall, knocking off the nose.
Luckily A.J. IV wasn't hurt and as it turned out, the car could be
fixed.
We fixed the car with a little help from our friends. Team Penske gave
us some materials and Tony George's Vision Racing team offered their
back-up car but I didn't want to put them in a tough position right
before Indy. I wanted to fix our car.
 Dreyer-Reinbold
Racing team manager John O'Gara volunteered to bring over some of his
crew to help fix the car. Robbie Buhl, who owns the team, drove for me
at Indy and finished sixth in 1999, the year I won with Kenny Brack.
John used to work on my team in the early 90's back when I was still
driving. They saw that we were behind the eight-ball and pitched in to
help which I really appreciated.
We even had help from a young Japanese fan who befriended us a couple
years ago. Tetsuo Kuramochi, of Utsonomiya, did everything from
sweeping the floor to polishing the race car. He couldn't do enough
for us, and to top it off, he even brought some Japanese treats.
While the Dreyer-Reinbold guys were fitting the new pieces together,
my crew was stripping away the damaged parts and Tetsuo was lending a
hand where needed. We worked until 11 pm Friday night and I was happy
to get the engine fired up before we headed back to the hotels.
Now Japan is different from every other track because the crews are
bussed to and from their hotels. Luckily, the owners and drivers stay
at the hotel at the race track. My team stayed in Mito (an hour away)
and Robbie's team was in Utsonomiya (90 minutes away). So working late
takes on a different meaning when you know it takes that long to get
back to your bed. I'm sure our crew spent the time riding to and from
the track asleep.
In any case, they were there bright and early race morning. I started
out bright and early but as I tried to make my way back to the track
(I'd taken the mini-truck back to the hotel because the shuttles had
stopped running long before) I missed an important turn. I ended up in
several different parking lots and no one spoke English or understood
my sign language. It was very frustrating because I could see the
track which sits in a bowl but with all the roads surrounding it (and
I was on every one it seemed), I couldn't get to it.
Never give up. I finally did find the right road into the infield but
it took me over half an hour. You can be sure that there will be
certain words that I will know before I return next year.
In the race, A.J. IV stayed on the lead lap until lap 46. Then our
pitstop strategy enabled us to get that lap back. We'd pitted early to
top off during an early caution which meant we could go longer till we
needed fuel. The yellow flag came out just when we needed to pit and
the leaders had already pitted. We lost another lap around the halfway
mark but got that back eventually when we didn't pit with the leaders.
There were eight caution periods, many drivers hit the wall. And most
of it was caused by the same things that caught out A.J. IV...cold tires
and a cool track which means less grip. Fortunately no one was hurt.
As good as our pitstop strategy was, we did make a mistake late in the
race and let A.J. IV run out of fuel. The leaders were coming up to
lap him when he needed to pit. I should have anticipated that and
called him in two laps early but I didn't. He was in the outside
groove getting lapped when he needed to duck into the pits. I had to
call him in one lap too late and he ran out on the backstretch. He
made it back but the car's engine had shut off so it always takes
longer to re-fire when it's hot. He lost four laps and one position.
He finished 14th. It wasn't our best finish but I can tell you it was
satisfying just to know that we did finish. The car held together, the
driver held together and we ran the entire race because as a team, we
never gave up.
We have a lot of work to do to get ready for Indy which opens on
Mother's Day. Scott Mayer is going to drive a car for me. He is a
rookie so he must do the rookie orientation program on Sunday and
Monday. Then the track opens for everyone on Tuesday, May 10th. That's
when A.J. IV and my son Larry Foyt, who will drive a third car for me,
get on track. Things will get really busy and I can't wait.
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