St. Pete
By A.J. Foyt


The Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg got rained out for the first time in its six year history and man, did it rain hard. It reminded me of a cow pissin’ on a flat rock. There was so much standing water around the track that there was no way to run that race on Sunday. It was a shame for the fans.


I don’t know if they all came back on Monday or we just got a bunch of curious townies who took advantage of the free admission. The stands looked pretty full from what I could tell. The promoters got butts in the seats and maybe they convinced a few people to come back to next year’s Indy car race.


Believe it or not, we actually did have a strategy for going into the race. We all agreed upon it—our driver Vitor Meira, engineer Jeff Britton and me. Looking back on it, we probably should have thought it out a little more.


Let me explain. At the road/street courses, you have to race two different compound Firestone tires (unless it rains during the race and you run rain tires, then you can run whatever you want). The primary, black tire is made of a harder compound and lasts longer. The alternate, red-rimmed tire has a softer compound. It’s faster but doesn’t last as long. And the reds really don’t last on our No. 14 ABC Supply car.


The thinking was to run those red suckers at the end when the track would have the most rubber on it and be less abrasive to the tires. When the race rained out on Sunday, we thought a green track at the start could play into our hands. We also thought there would be fewer cars to run against because the street courses are usually good for some multi-car wrecks.


Well it didn’t work.


Part of it was due to the way the caution periods fell but our major problem was not being able to make the red-rimmed tires live past ten laps. That, and most of the drivers drove smart.


Vitor did lead 12 laps overall and in the middle part of the race, he was running really competitively on the black tires. He was passing cars and looking good.


Maybe we should have come in on that final caution with everyone else but to be truthful, the only thing that would’ve changed is we wouldn’t have gotten any TV time. The result would have been the same because in our final run on the red tires, Vitor had dropped off three to four seconds a lap! He was dropping like I did when I dumped my bulldozer in the pond a few years back…like a stone.


Looking at his left front tire afterwards, I bet he felt as helpless as I did and was just trying to survive. That outside front tire had blistered and was down to the cords. He was damn lucky that it didn’t blow, so those extra laps he stayed out on the blacks just might have made the difference in finishing the race. Who knows?


What we did know was that we wanted him to run as few laps as possible on the reds. And if that lap 74 yellow had come out on lap 75, it could have worked it out where we only spent two laps on them (the minimum stint is two green flag laps).


I am not a fan of having to run this alternate tire in the race. I think it should be an option and if people want to run it fine—some drivers are easy on the tires and they can capitalize on it—but I’d like it much better if the decision was left up to the teams.


Since I don’t think they’ll be changing that rule any time soon, we need to work harder on our setups so they don’t put as much of a strain on those softer compound tires. Vitor is also looking hard at his driving style to see if he can change it up so he’s not, as he said, ‘asking as much of the tires.’


We finished 15th, and dropped from third to eighth in the points, but we’re only nine points out of second. I am still excited about the year ahead, more so than I’ve been in a while. We learned some things from this weekend – you always learn more from your bad weekends than you do your good weekends.


I really like the way Jeff is working with us -- he is a solid engineer, has good ideas and we work good together. And Vitor and Larry feel the same way—or maybe they’re just relieved that Jeff and I get along. I can be tough on my engineers sometimes—okay most of the time.


Maybe it’s a little early in the season to say this but I believe you’ll be seeing more of the No. 14 ABC Supply car at the head of the pack in the IZOD IndyCar Series and it won’t be just to get TV time!


Mark my words.