A. J. Foyt

Early life

Anthony Joseph Foyt Jr., born on January 16, 1935, in Houston, Texas, is a retired American racing driver known for his open wheel career and for being the first to win the Indianapolis 500 four times. He holds a record seven American National Championship titles. Foyt competed in USAC Championship cars, sprint cars, and midget cars, as well as stock cars in NASCAR and USAC. He holds the USAC career wins record with 159 victories and the Indy car racing career wins record with 67. He is the only driver to win the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Daytona 500, and the 24 Hours of Daytona, and is in multiple motorsports halls of fame. In the mid-1960s, he became a team owner, fielding cars for himself and others, and after retiring from driving, he has owned A. J. Foyt Enterprises, which has fielded teams in CART, the IndyCar Series, and NASCAR.

Foyt’s father was a mechanic and hobby racer who gave him a toy racer with a lawnmower engine at age three. At five, he challenged midget champion Doc Cossey to a match race at Buffalo Stadium and won, later saying he knew then that racing was his profession. When Foyt was eleven, his father left him home and returned to find he had driven the family’s race car in the yard, causing damage and a fire; his father accepted his son’s future as a driver. Foyt often fought and ran home from school, and a teacher once complained his homework was covered with racing cars. After getting a license, he bought a used Ford and practiced mechanical skills from working on his father’s cars. He street-raced until police turned him in to his parents, then dropped out of high school to work as a mechanic and focus on racing.

Driving career

Foyt raced midget cars from the age of seventeen, driving for a low-budget owner after his father refused to let A.J. use his car. He took part in the 1956 Night Before the 500 at West 16th Street Speedway, located across the street from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His first midget car win was at Kansas City in 1957, and he finished seventh for the season. He won the 1960 and 1961 Turkey Night Grand Prix - the first two years that event shifted to Ascot Park in Gardena, California. He won the 1961 Hut Hundred after starting last, and finished seventh in National Midget point standings that year. He won the Astro Grand Prix in 1970, held inside the Houston Astrodome. In 1975 and 1976, Foyt won the Australian Speedcar Grand Prix, a midget race held at the Liverpool International Speedway in Sydney, Australia. He ended his career with twenty midget car feature wins. Foyt began his sprint car career in 1956, at the age of 21, driving the Les Vaughn Offy with the International Motor Contest Association. On August 24, 1956, Foyt outqualified a field of 42 drivers at the Minnesota State Fair and, the following day, he won his first sprint car race, running away with the IMCA feature at the Red River Fair in Fargo, North Dakota. On June 16, 1957, on the high banked asphalt track at Salem, Indiana, Foyt came out on top in a race-long battle with Bob Cleberg. That victory put Foyt on the radar for USAC car owners and he switched from the IMCA to USAC later that season. Foyt eventually won 28 USAC National sprint car feature races and the USAC Eastern Championship in 1960.

Career summary

In 1958, Foyt debuted at Indy, but spun out on lap 148. In 1961, he became the first driver to successfully defend his points championship and win the Indy 500. Foyt made a late pit stop, but a refueling malfunction meant he returned to the race without enough fuel to finish. Eddie Sachs, unaware that Foyt's now-quicker car was light on fuel, pushed hard to keep up, and had to pit from the lead with just three laps remaining to replace a tire. Foyt also pitted again for fuel, but resumed the lead and beat Sachs by 8.28 seconds, the second-closest finish to that time. He raced in each season from 1957 to 1992, starting in 374 races and finishing in the top ten 201 times, with 67 victories. In 1964, Foyt stayed with his reliable Offenhauser-engined roadster, winning a record ten of fourteen races en route to the 1964 championship, including winning his second Indianapolis 500. In the 1967 Indianapolis 500, Parnelli Jones' STP-Paxton Turbocar was expected to easily defeat the field. Jones lapped the field, but his car expired with three laps remaining, and Foyt inherited the lead. As Foyt moved through turn four on the 200th lap, he had a premonition of trouble and slowed down. A few hundred yards ahead, Carl Williams spun out, triggering a five-car front-stretch accident. Foyt threaded his way through the wreckage and took the checkered flag. In the 1977 Indianapolis 500, Foyt ran out of fuel, and had to make a pit stop. He had to make up around 32 seconds on Gordon Johncock. Foyt made up 1.5 to 2 seconds per lap by turning up his turbo boost, which risked destroying the engine. Johncock's engine expired after Foyt closed to within eight seconds, and Foyt passed for the win. Foyt won the Indianapolis 500 four times, in 1961, 1964, 1967, and 1977, the first driver to have done so. Of his 67 career Championship Car race victories, twelve were won at Trenton. Foyt also won the Indycar Series seven times and qualified for the Indianapolis 500 race 35 times. Foyt recorded a top ten finish at Indianapolis in five consecutive decades (1950s-1990s). In the 1982 Indianapolis 500, Foyt started on the front row but was involved in a controversial wreck when Kevin Cogan spun out. Foyt was livid and said "That damn 'Coogin'" on live radio, and when asked on TV by Chris Economaki what had happened, Foyt shouted, "I don't know, he just ran right square into my goddamn left front!" Economaki asked who he referred to, and Foyt replied, "Cogan!" After repairs during the red flag, Foyt led early but retired the car due to lingering damage from the crash. In a 1990 CART race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, Foyt's car left the track and plowed through a dirt embankment, severely injuring his legs and feet. After multiple surgeries and months of physiotherapy he returned for the 1991 Indianapolis 500 and qualified second. He announced his retirement before the race but changed his mind after being caught up in an early incident. He returned for a 35th consecutive start in 1992 and finished 9th. Foyt won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in his only attempt, in 1967, in a Ford GT40 Mk IV, partnered with Dan Gurney and entered by Carroll Shelby. Prior to the race, Foyt angered the fans and the local press by describing the notoriously fast and dangerous tree-lined course as "nothin' but a little old country road." Foyt reportedly got only ten laps of practice, but when Gurney overslept and missed a driver change in the middle of the night, Foyt was forced to double-stint and wound up driving nearly 18 hours of the 24. Foyt won the 12 Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of Daytona in 1985 in a Porsche.

Car owner

In the mid-1960s, Foyt became a team owner, fielding cars for himself and other drivers. After retiring from race driving, he has owned A. J. Foyt Enterprises, which has fielded teams in CART, the IndyCar Series, and NASCAR.