Brazil
By A.J. Foyt


The IZOD IndyCar Series opened their season in Brazil this past weekend with the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300. All I can say is the trip turned out better than I expected for a lot of reasons.


First was having Vitor Meira finish third in his first race back since his accident at Indy last year! He drove a helluva race in the ABC Supply Dallara/Honda car! Firestone thought so too because they nominated him for their Tire-ific Move of the Race which the fans vote on at www.indycar.com.


I know Vitor was happy because he did it in Brazil with his family and friends there, plus all his fans! I know I was happy for my race team and our sponsor ABC Supply, but I was really, really happy for Vitor.


We arrived in Brazil Thursday night and Vitor picked up some of us at the airport. The ride to the Holiday Inn was a thriller. The Brazilians drive crazy, there’s no two ways about it. I have to say Vitor had me pushing that ‘brake pedal’ through the floorboard a couple times. We watched a police car, actually a police SUV, almost rear-end a guy in the lane next to us! That police car came flying up on stopped traffic, screeched the heck out of the brakes and missed hitting the car ahead by inches.


The traffic was terrible! Talk about congestion, it was worse than anything I’ve seen in Houston, New York or even L.A. Someone told me that there are six million cars on the roads during the weekdays. I don’t know if that’s true but even if it was only three million, that’s still incredible.


And the motorcycle riders are downright crazy! They ride between the lanes – fast. And Vitor told us if you try to block them, they kick your mirrors off or give your car a new dent. God forbid if you’re unlucky enough to hit them because when you stop and get out of your car, all the other riders swarm on you like a bunch of killer bees and beat the hell out of you. No one has to tell me what that feels like.


And they drive just as crazy rain or shine! They say they’re needed because they send a lot of things by messenger because it’s the only way to get business done in the city. I believed it when they said there are over 300 accidents a day with those riders—no telling how many drivers get hurt or killed. I will never forget that.


I wasn’t sure what to expect with the food so I brought my own: Oreo cookies (regular and the new golden—double stuffed of course), chips and Hershey bars. But I brought most of it back because the food was pretty good. Both nights we ate at the hotel (the first night we got in too late for that so those chips came in handy).


I didn’t get to see the city of Sao Paulo because we stayed in the compound surrounding the circuit. We’d heard that it was dangerous outside the track so we didn’t take any chances. Heck, it’s dangerous if you go to the wrong places in Houston after dark. The difference is I know where those places are in Houston.


I’m glad the race worked out for everyone in spite of the problems with the rain and loss of power and the Sambo frontstretch. That was a section of track at the start finish line where the concrete was so slippery that cars were losing control on the straightaway and hitting the wall in practice. I have to hand it to Brian Barnhart (the head of operations for the IZOD series) and the promoters because they came up with a fix to grind the concrete the night before the race to give the track more grip. It worked.


I still think the track is very dangerous the way it has that mile-long straightaway going down to a hairpin. If a driver has a brake failure at the end of that deal, they’ll find out that the tire barrier won’t stop them. I know the drivers like having the ability to pass and it makes for good racing but I still think it’s dangerous. Reminds me of my accident at Elkhart Lake when the brakes failed and I went sailing off. I’m still crippled. I think they should fix that for next year.


Getting down to the race… we qualified eighth in our group but if we’d been in the other group we would have been fifth and gone to the next round. We started 16th.


For all the talk about needing to be patient in this race, there was a big chain reaction accident at the first corner of the first lap. One car landed on top of another but luckily no one got hurt. Vitor got through it without a scratch so we gained eight positions! So it worked out for us.


When the green came out seven laps later, Vitor passed Dan Wheldon for seventh and was running there until the first pit stop. That was not our finest moment. We had a problem on the pitstop and we lost five spots. Some teams short-fueled to gain track position but we still screwed up. I was hot and they knew it.


In a way that also worked out for us because we were able to duck into the pits for rain tires on lap 30 because of our track position. By the time the red came out, we were up to eighth. That rain was something else—it looked like a hurricane it came down so hard. They stopped the race after 34 laps.


The rain stopped pretty quick and they started the race again after a half hour or so. Despite the standing water on the track, we told Vitor to pit for slicks. He pitted a lap after Ryan Hunter-Reay and Will Power did. He missed coming in the lap earlier because the radio communication was bad. He came out last on the lead lap. But the track dried up quick and he picked off cars on track and picked up positions as the leaders pitted to change to slicks. He went from 14th to fifth in three laps!


He moved into fourth on lap 54 when Ryan Briscoe, who was leading, hit a tire barrier, creating a two lap yellow. A lap after that final restart, Vitor got a run on Matos in the 2 car and passed him for third! Those final five laps felt like forever. He saluted our ABC Supply crew with both fists pumping as he drove past us after the checkered. He was the top-finishing Brazilian so the crowd went wild too. I know it thrilled Vitor.


Will Power, who also had a back injury from his accident at Infineon last year, won the race so his comeback was special too. I congratulated my old friend Roger Penske in victory lane. Ryan Hunter-Reay drove a great race for Michael Andretti to finish second. Penske, Andretti, Foyt—felt like the old times.


Jack Arute asked Vitor in the post-race interview if he had tears in his eyes. Vitor said, “A.J. would kick my butt if I was crying here so I better not.”


Maybe not Vitor, maybe not. As hard as you worked to recover and as hard as you raced, you deserved this. I was as thrilled for you as if you had won the race. By the way, you didn’t have to thank me for waiting for you. You drove like the champion we knew you to be when we hired you so of course we waited for you to come back.


And when you do win this year, I’ll be wearing my sunglasses, even if it’s raining.