Kansas Speedway
Kansas Indy 300

A.J. IV Turns in Another Strong Performance

A.J. Foyt IV had the car and the ability but not the luck to earn his first top-10 finish at Kansas Speedway on a hot, sunny Fourth of July. He placed 13th in the Argent Mortgage Indy 300 which was won by Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice in down to the wire battle between with his teammate Vitor Meira.

Rice's .0051-second margin of victory is the second closest in IRL IndyCar Series history. Honda-powered cars claimed seven of the top-nine finishes, including the top six.

Foyt IV started 14th in the 200-lap race but dropped back to last when the changes made to the Conseco Dallara/Toyota after race morning's final practice (where he was ninth quickest) proved too much.

The car was ‘pushing' (making it difficult to turn in the corners) but Foyt IV held on until the first pitstop where Team Conseco dialed in more front wing.

Foyt IV peeled tenths off his lap times as he reeled in the competition, going from 19th to 13th without benefit of a caution to close up the fast-flying field. Unfortunately, on his next stop on lap 103, the air hose became stuck in the car and the young driver was sent on with it still attached to the car.

"It was my fault," said A.J. Foyt, who calls Team Conseco's race strategy from the pits. "I sent him before they got the hose detached. I should have told him to stop and get the crew to pull him back into the pit, but I told A.J. IV to hurry up and drive around to the pit, which is why we got the 10-second penalty. As it turned out, it took longer than that to get the pieces out of the vent hole."

From then on, it was a matter of just trying to finish as Foyt IV was 18th and several laps down. He drove the wheels off the Conseco car, passing cars that were laps ahead but running slower than the 208-209 mph laps that A.J. IV was logging.

Other teams' problems and a two-car accident with 25 laps to go saw Foyt IV go from 18th to 15th. On the restart, he passed seventh place Helio Castroneves with ease and took on sixth and fifth place runners Adrian Fernandez and Bryan Herta in his quest to reach Ed Carpenter who was six cars (but just one position) ahead of Foyt. Felipe Giaffone, running 11th, had mechanical problems with seven laps to go making Foyt IV 14th. He passed Carpenter two laps later to finish 13th behind Target Ganassi teammates Scott Dixon and Darren Manning.

"We had a bad push at the start, but after our first pit stop, the car was handling great," said Foyt IV afterwards. "We ran into more bad luck when the air hose got stuck on our next stop, and we had to pit again, plus take a 10-second penalty. But we didn't give up, and we passed some top cars, so we know we can run with the guys that win races. It was fun."

The senior Foyt added, "We let him down in the pits. We're all disappointed because he drove his butt off today and he should have had a top-10 easy. He drove a helluva race."

Despite the result, Team Conseco is encouraged by the momentum of running competitively in the last two races. Foyt IV moved up another position in points and is now 17th.

The next race is the Firestone Indy 200 at Nashville Superspeedway Saturday night July 17th. It will be televised live at 7 pm Eastern by ESPN.

 NOTES & QUOTES: Argent Mortgage Kansas Indy 300

A.J. Foyt IV: Conseco No. 14 Dallara/Toyota/Firestone

A.J. Foyt IV on Kansas: "I expect to have a good race at Kansas because the Conseco car ran well there last year. Last month, we had a good race set-up at Texas but we were punted by another competitor. Our race ended early and so it didn't show how good the car was. I'm looking for a much better run at Kansas because the track is similar to Texas and we know we have a good race set-up. And, the whole team is feeling upbeat after getting a good finish at Richmond, so we'll carry that momentum into this weekend."

A.J. Foyt on Al Unser, Jr.: "I was surprised to hear that Lil Al retired but I think every driver knows in his own mind when the time comes. Li'l Al was a helluva race driver. He wasn't a great qualifier but you always had to deal with him in the race no matter where he started. He won a lot of races, and I think he still has some wins left in him. But anytime you can walk away from this sport, you're ahead of the game."

At the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond, Foyt IV finished 11th to post his best result of the season to date. Foyt started 21st after a problem with the rev limiter during qualifying. He said, "The Conseco car was competitive all night. We were passing cars and we stayed out of trouble. We ran hard so it was fun for me as a driver."

At Kansas last year, Foyt IV drove a strong race but encountered problems while lapping several slower cars, including contact with two of them. It required Team Conseco to replace the nose assembly on the No. 14 during a green flag pitstop. He soldiered on only to have the engine blow with 12 laps to go. He placed 15th. Teammate Jaques Lazier also had problems lapping slower cars and had to have his car's nose assembly replaced also. He salvaged a 10th place finish.

Past performance at Kansas Speedway for Foyt's IRL team shows one victory with Airton Dare and a DNF with Greg Ray in 2002, a third place with Donnie Beechler and a seventh place with Eliseo Salazar in 2001.

The Argent Mortgage Kansas Indy 300 will be televised live Sunday at 12:30 p.m. eastern on ABC.