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Kansas City Blues
 This
past weekend in Kansas City had all the makings of a great
weekend for the Foyt/Harrah's Racing team.
Kansas Speedway is a beautiful 1.5-mile flat track located in
Kansas City, Missouri just west of the Missouri River. The track
has been a good place for Foyt/Harrah's Racing on the open wheel
side because my dad's teams scored a double victory there in
July when Airton Dare and A.J. Foyt IV both won their respective
races.
I was looking forward to our NASCAR race in Kansas City for a
lot of reasons, chief among them was that we were bringing a
brand new Harrah's Chevrolet that we had tested at Kentucky
Speedway a couple days earlier. Secondly, I had a good
qualifying run there last year (started eighth).
 And
there's a Harrah's Casino in North Kansas City which is where I
started out my week with a Wheels on Meals event. Following the
well-attended press conference at the casino, I made my tenth
delivery of the season in my No. 14 Harrah's race car. It's
always fun to see the looks on people's faces when I pull up
with that car because it's engine--all 650 horsepower--creates
quite a stir when I blip the throttle. It gives the seniors
something to smile and talk about even after we leave.
We followed that event with an autograph session at the casino
the next day and the turnout was phenomenal. I signed autographs
for over three hours.
Taking all into account, it appeared that the opportunity was
there to go three for three for Harrah's this year. However,
when we qualified 29th I knew we had a tougher road ahead of us
but I was optimistic that we could still get a good finish in
the Mr. Goodcents 300.
Unfortunately, our final practice session wasn't terrific so we
made some changes to the car before the race and as I quickly
found out, we may have gone a little too far.
The car was loose, very loose. On a scale of one-to-ten, it was
scoring a high nine. When I almost knocked down the walls at
both ends of the track, I told the guys I was coming in to get
the car adjusted--now.
They did make some adjustments to tighten the car up and I
started breathing again. You can hold your breath for so long.
Then there was four-car wreck directly in front of me which I
managed to avoid and not hit anything. However, a piece of
debris did hit my radiator creating a small hole. The water
temperatures began to rise and I had to pull into the work area
behind the pits so my Harrah's crew could get to work on it.
It took them seven laps to replace the radiator and I rejoined
the race. At that point we decided to use the race as a test
session because any hope of a top-five finish was gone.
Sometimes that's what you have to do in those situations--make
the best day out of it that you can. We finished 28th but at
least we didn't drop in the standings as we are still 19th.
Our "test session" proved particularly valuable in a couple of
key areas for our high-speed track program which has been a weak
link for us lately. It gave us some specific information in
areas that we can improve. We will learn even more this week in
the open Busch Series test at Lowe's Motor Speedway in
Charlotte.
Our Foyt/Harrah's Racing team doesn't compete this coming
weekend but they will be busy incorporating all that we learn
into changes on the car for the upcoming race in Charlotte
October 5th.
As always, we are looking forward it!
Notes & Quotes:
Mr. Goodcents 300 at Kansas Speedway
 Larry
Foyt on Kansas: "We're taking a brand new car to Kansas
which we are testing today at Kentucky...I like Kansas because it
is real fast and you can hang it out and have a pretty decent
run. Last year I qualified 8th but I got into someone else's
trouble so we didn't have a good finish."
Dover Race Recap: "Dover was a very long day for me. The
car was tight right from the start and whenever I'd get in
traffic it would slide right to the wall. My arms got tired from
having them crossed all the time trying to keep the car off the
wall. It was a long day for a lot of reasons."
Serving Seniors: Once again Larry Foyt will be delivering
Meals on his Wheels, the No. 14 Harrah's Chevrolet. The
25-year-old will visit the Don Bosco Senior Center this
Wednesday following a press conference at the Harrah's Casino in
North Kansas City. The visit will mark the 10th time this season
that Foyt has delivered on his promise to assist Meals on Wheels
in their campaign to raise awareness of the plight of our
nation's senior citizens.
Foyt is 19th in the NASCAR Busch Series standings; he has
earned $466,660 to date.
The race will be televised Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern
Time on TNT.
Kansas 2001: Foyt qualified 8th but finished 30th. He got
caught up in Randy Tolsma's accident and had to pit to repair
the radiator, losing 14 laps. |
