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The Highs and
Lows of Indy
By A.J. Foyt
For all the changes I've seen in my 44 years at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, there are two things that have remained the same, the Speedway can give you your greatest highs and she can deal you your lowest blows.
My race team felt both the highs and lows of Indy this past qualifying weekend. It started out low and it ended up low, but there was one bright spot Saturday afternoon. Robby Gordon qualified my Conseco No. 41 Dallara on the front row with a solid four-lap average speed of 224.9 mph. He'll start third outside pole winner Scott Sharp and Greg Ray.
Eliseo Salazar wasn't so lucky in the Harrah's No 14 car.
Eliseo had been fast in practice all week. On Friday, he was just getting up to speed when he lost control of his car going into turn one and hit the wall hard. He totaled the brand new car and got a black eye and bruised his foot. But let me set the record straight here, Eliseo got the black eye from the accident not from me.
The crew worked nearly all night getting the back-up car ready for qualifying. Saturday morning, we practiced and Eliseo had turned a couple 222s so I told his crew chief to call him in after he made it through turn one.
The next thing I heard was the impact of Eliseo's car hitting the wall in turn one. The engine blew in the absolutely worst spot and Eliseo went along for the ride. Luckily, he didn't get hurt in that deal. My Harrah's crew worked hard to piece together the back-up car but there was no way to make it for qualifying on pole day.
On Sunday morning, Robby and I posed for pictures with our Conseco team and the other front row starters on the front straight of the Speedway. This is the fourth straight year that one of m y cars has been on the front row at Indy.
Eliseo warmed up the Harrah's car and turned a lap at 223 mph so I knew we were ready to qualify. I just wished I had listened to my gut and gone out right away to qualify. At least we would have had a chance to re-qualify later in the day if we had a problem.
As it turned out, we waited until the track cooled down late in the day. I told Eliseo just to put four good laps together to get in the show. He had a 223 average going when the engine blew on the last two turns on the last lap. I couldn't believe it. Neither could he.
He was lucky he didn't hit the wall again. He was smart to keep the car going as smoothly as possible. I heard later that Michael Andretti criticized Eliseo on TV because he didn't pull off the track immediately after it happened. Andretti thought Eliseo oiled down the track on purpose. Well, anyone with a nickel's worth of common sense knows you don't make any radical moves when you're going through turn four at well over 200 mph with oil spilling out on your tires. Get out of the groove? He was lucky just not to hit anything. I can't believe that someone with Andretti's experience could be so stupid to make comments like that.
Now we have to work hard this week to get our brand new Harrah's Dallara car ready for Eliseo to qualify this Sunday. I'm not too worried because I know why we had the problems we did and that won't happen again. But then again we are on the outside still looking to get in the show.
Foyt Racing's had enough of Indy's lows; we're ready for some of its
highs.
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