INDYCAR: Foyt, Gurney On The Mend

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Foyt, Gurney On The Mend

The co-drivers of the great American triumph at Le Mans in 1967 are currently wheeling walkers and trying to get a good night’s sleep.

Robin Miller | Posted January 17, 2012

1967 Le Mans winner Dan Gurney is about to start the tradition of spraying champagne in the winner's circle as his co-driver A.J. Foyt looks on. (LAT)

The co-drivers of the great American triumph at Le Mans in 1967 are currently wheeling walkers and trying to get a good night’s sleep.

Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt both had knee surgery last week and Tuesday they commiserated on their aches and pains over the telephone.

"A.J. said he left the hospital three days before his doctors wanted him to and now he’s suffering,” said Gurney with a chuckle.

"I told him he was just trying to live up to his reputation.”

Foyt, who turned 77 on Monday, went into the hospital in Houston to have rotater cuff surgery and also opted to have some bone spurs removed from around his knee.

"I let my mouth overload my ass,” said Indy’s first four-time winner. "They had to take my kneecap on and off and they said it would be a real painful operation and I told them I could handle it.

"So I go home early and tell them I don’t need any morphine and boy was that a mistake.’’

The tough Texan whose feet were shattered at Elkhart Lake, broke his back at Riverside, got burned at Milwaukee, battered at Michigan and run over by his dirt car at DuQuoin says this pain is as bad as any of his crashes.

"Hell yes, it’s keeping me up all night and I’m driving (wife) Lucy crazy.”

Gurney, who survived a little motorcycle accident last summer, is now the proud owner of a titanium knee.

"It hurts and it’s hard to get comfortable to sleep but they had me standing up on it the same day they replaced it so that’s encouraging for an old geezer,” said the 80-year-old icon of F1, Indy and sports cars.

"My wife (Evi) has become a damn good nurse and it’s a good thing.”

The two legends have canes and walkers but Foyt also needs a wheelchair.

"The bad thing is that it’s my left arm and left leg so I can’t operate a walker one-handed and I just keep going around in circles in the wheelchair,” said the grand marshall of this month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

To which the ever-innovative All-American Racer replied:

"Tell A.J. he needs a locked rear-end in his wheelchair.”

STAPP ALSO ON THE MEND

Sprint car Hall of Famer Steve Stapp is recovering nicely from a multitude of injuries after his RV was struck by a train last month outside his shop in Brownsburg.

The former driver and longtime USAC sprint car owner suffered two broken legs, 13 crushed ribs, a punctured lung and some facial lacerations from being hit by an 89-car freight train and ejected from the cab of the RV he had been working on.

"He’s doing very well,” said Rosemary Stapp, his wife of 48 years. "All the tubes are out, he’s breathing on his own and he’s doing rehab every day. He can’t have visitors yet but he’s making good progress and we appreciate everyone’s prayers because he was in really bad shape for a while.

"He doesn’t remember the accident and that’s probably a good thing.”

The 71-year-old son of Indy 500 regular Babe Stapp, Steve was a winning sprint car driver before teaming up with Pancho Carter for a pair of USAC sprint titles in the 1970s.

A great storyteller who never met a meal he didn’t like, Stapp is hoping to be able to attend the annual Sprint Car Hall of Fame ceremonies at Knoxville, Ia. in June.

Robin Miller brings 40 years of experience to his role as SPEED.com's senior open-wheel reporter, and serves as a frequent contributor to SPEED Center and Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain.