Texas Motor Speedway
BOMBARDIER 500

Race Report

Start: 17th
Finish: 22nd

A.J. Foyt IV appeared to be having his best Indy car race of the season in the Bombardier 500 Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway as the Conseco Dallara was running with the lead pack of cars effortlessly.

And then he became a victim of a rookie driver's error.

Running in a pack of 14 cars, Foyt IV was in turn three on the outside of Ed Carpenter who ran up too quickly on his teammate Alex Barron. To avoid hitting his teammate, Carpenter braked, swerved right and clipped Foyt IV who had seen the situation develop but could not take enough evasive action.

"I saw that Ed was closing in fast on Alex and I saw that it wasn't going to work so I got off the gas and headed to the right to try to get away from Ed but he got me with his right rear when he went high," said Foyt IV. "That hit shot my car into the wall. Luckily the track had put up the Safer Barriers in the turns so the impact wasn't as hard as it could have been. I walked away.

"I was really disappointed for my Conseco crew because they gave me a great car; I could pretty much run wherever I wanted. I was just biding my time because there were already some crazy moves being made by the veterans out there. I wanted to be there at the end."

A.J. Foyt radioed to his grandson, "Are you okay?" When A.J. IV replied dejectedly, "I'm okay," his grandfather told him, "Don't be upset. You drove a great race and that accident wasn't your fault. You did a good job."

As it turned out, Foyt IV was the first one out. He placed 22nd. Carpenter, who appeared to be unscathed lasted only a lap under green. His car had been damaged in the incident but his team did not bring him in for an inspection. Under load, the suspension broke and Carpenter hit the wall. The impact totaled his car but fortunately he escaped without injury.

Tony Kanaan won the race that saw only 12 of the original 22 starters finish. Dario Franchitti, the pole winner and teammate to Kanaan, finished second. Third through fifth were Alex Barron, Sam Hornish Jr. and Adrian Fernandez.

The next race for the IRL IndyCar Series is the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway, a three-quarter mile banked oval in Richmond, Va. That race will also be run under the lights Saturday night, June 26th at 7:30 pm eastern time. It will be televised live on ESPN2.
 

NOTES & QUOTES: Bombardier 500k
A.J. Foyt IV: Conseco No. 14 Dallara/Toyota/Firestone


A.J. Foyt IV on Texas: ""My goal for this race is to finish in the top 10, actually just to finish would be good. We're running the Conseco Dallara there which will be my first time with that chassis at Texas. I think it will be better in the race for me, especially when we're in traffic because the Dallara's steering feels more positive than the G-Force and I like that. We are definitely going to try to run with cars in practice to make sure the Conseco car handles well around other cars, because at Texas you're always around other cars. I like racing at night because it gets pretty hot in Texas this time of year. With the bright lights at the track, there are no shadows so there isn't much of a downside to racing at night, except maybe having to sit around and wait all day to race."

Larry Foyt will be in Texas this weekend serving as the spotter for A.J. IV. "I think it helps to have a driver serve as the spotter," said A.J. Foyt. "Drivers see things in a different perspective and are better able to relate that info to fellow drivers. Larry isn't running the stock car at Pocono this weekend so I asked him to help out."

This race marks Foyt IV's 21st start in the IRL IndyCar Series. He is currently 16th in the standings.

In last year's Bombardier 500k, Foyt IV posted his best qualifying effort (14th) but his race was curtailed after just 40 laps. He brushed the wall coming off turn two hard enough to damage the suspension and couldn't continue. Foyt IV said, "We were fighting a bad push since the green flag dropped. I did everything I could inside the car with the bars to adjust the handling but it wasn't enough. I was fighting it real bad in traffic so I really had to slow down so I wouldn't push up into the other cars. When I got by myself, I tried to pick up my speed a little bit and that's when I had the trouble."

Fonder TMS Memories: Foyt IV earned his Infiniti Pro Series title when he won the final race of the inaugural season at Texas Motor Speedway in September 2002. A month later that same year he passed his IRL IndyCar Series rookie test at TMS en route to earning his IRL license.

The Bombardier 500k will be shown live at 8:00 PM eastern time Saturday night, June 12th on ESPN.