|
|
 |
|
|
Milwaukee
By A.J. Foyt
 My
first race back since my knee surgery turned out to be a little tougher than I
thought. If it were any other race but the ABC Supply/A.J. Foyt 225 I probably
would have taken a pass on it. But since it was at my sponsor's hometown
track--the Milwaukee Mile--I had to go the extra mile.
ABC Supply really got behind the event. They brought in 1700 guests, mostly
employees from their company headquarters in Beloit, Wis. And they had a great
day weather-wise on race day. I think it was a record crowd for the IRL at the
Milwaukee Mile.
I can tell you one thing, I don't heal as quick as I used to. I flew up to
Milwaukee and went to ABC's annual company picnic in Beloit the night before
practice. By the time I got back to my hotel, my new knee let me know it'd had a
full day.
 The
next day I moved around mostly by golf cart. I was glad that my team manager
Craig Baranouski had arranged for engineers Bruce Ashmore and Len Paskus to be
on hand. Bruce I've known for years and Len I just met this weekend. I didn't
have to work as hard as I usually do.
Making their job a little easier was finding out some things about our basic
set-up before the team tested at Milwaukee last Wednesday. I think that set-up
change had been haunting us since Japan and it was definitely a problem for us
at Indy this year.
Being able to test at Milwaukee with our new driver Jeff Bucknum helped him get
his confidence on the ovals. He's only been on three other ovals-Motegi in
Japan, Indy and Nashville-and they were all different in size and banking.
Milwaukee is a real tricky track because it's a flat one mile oval. I call it a
thinking man's track.
So I was pretty happy when I heard that the test went good. Len and Jeff seemed
to work good together. On Friday, the practice went smooth too. We were 11th in
the first practice and fifth in the second one. When they combined the two
sessions we came out eighth overall. As tired as I was, I was also relieved
because we wanted to do a good job for ABC Supply.
The next day didn't go so good.
We were 13th in the morning warm-up but that was ok since the No. 14 ABC Supply
Dallara was on old tires (you get a limited number of sets). In qualifying, we
had new tires which should have picked up our time. However, Jeff made a rookie
mistake (easy to do at this track) and went into turn one too hard. It feels
good until you get to turn two and it pushes to the wall-then you have to lift
which he had to do both laps. He was 16th fastest, the slowest he'd run in two
days. I know he was mad at himself but like I told him, this track is not easy.
I've done that too and I raced at Milwaukee 45 times just in Indy cars!
In final practice, things took a turn for the worse. A guy got out of shape in
front of him and he had to jam on his brakes to avoid hitting him. His hand was
on the shifter and he slipped it into third by accident which made the engine
over-rev. The engine had to be replaced which was costly in more ways than just
the expense of the engine. We lost practice time (it happened about 15 minutes
into the session) and we had to start last (which was only one row back).
I was really tired Saturday evening.
I arrived at the track early on race morning. I went over everything with Len
and Jeff. I wanted to watch the USAC Silver Crown race because the No. 14 Silver
Crown car (which carried ABC Supply) had qualified on the pole with Josh Wise.
He led the first 13 laps but then his brakes began overheating. He ended up
seventh which was disappointing for everyone.
For the race I was supposed to give the command to start the engines. Since I'm
71, all the drivers competing now are just kids to me, so I came out with, "Boys
and Girl, start your engines!" The crowd loved it by their cheers.
I didn't call the race, Len did. I watched the beginning from the pits but then
I went back to the transporter with my radio and watched the rest of it on TV. I
know Jeff struggled in the first part of the race and as luck would have it, we
didn't have a yellow where we could adjust the car. We lost three laps before
the first stop and probably lost the other one right after because of our track
position.
Len made an adjustment on that first stop (which we had to do under green) and
Jeff picked up his speed. He said the car was working great and that he had
figured out how to run to keep his tires clean during that first stint. There
were a lot of marbles (gummy pieces of rubber that come off as the tires wear)
on the bottom and top of the track.
As the race went on, I thought everything was going to turn out okay. But with
27 laps to go, he was a little high going into turn three, got in the marbles
and the car pushed straight to the wall in turn four. It hit the whole right
side. It didn't look too hard to me (wishful thinking) and Jeff came over the
radio right away and apologized. I told him later that overall, he did a good
job. He ended up 13th.
I found out the next day that we lost the right side suspension and the motor. A
tough deal but it could have been worse.
Jeff did learn a lot. I think he probably learned more in that race than he did
in all of the other oval races he ran combined. After the first pit stop, he was
running speeds as quick as the leaders.
I'm glad for ABC Supply that the weather was good and there was a great crowd
for the event. I wish I had been feeling better so I could have enjoyed it more.
Next year will be better all the way around.
This coming weekend we're off to Michigan International Speedway. Jeff Bucknum's
dad Ronnie won the first ever Indy car race at Michigan back in 1968 so it will
be a special race for Jeff for a lot of reasons-but that's for next week's
column.
Tune in to catch the action this Sunday, July 30th, on ABC-TV starting at 3:30
pm eastern time.
|
|
|
|
|
