gleary's avatar
Author:
Gregg Leary
 
Rate this article:
  • 0/5 Stars
  • Related Photos
SPEEDtv.com Store
Check Out the New NASCAR on SPEED Online Store
Enter Code 10SPEED at checkout for an additional 10% discount (including clearance items).
Our Price: Visit the Store
Visit Button
Buy Button
DVD: David Jefferies Story
The David Jefferies Story is a reminder of the much loved and much missed Yorkshireman.
Our Price: $24.95
Visit Button
Buy Button
Man-Made Thunder
The book examines the sport of stock car racing through the eyes and ears of the men behind the wheel and the wrenches.
Our Price: $49.00
Visit Button
Buy Button
Unisex Sandwich Cap
Unisex Velcro back hat with SPEED logo on front. PINKS logo embroidered on left and PAO logo on right. One size fits all.
Our Price: $24.95
Visit Button
Buy Button
Speedway T-shirt
Men's 6 oz. 100% Cotton Jersey Short Sleeve Tee. SPEED logo imprinted on the front center chest.
Our Price: $24.99
Visit Button
Buy Button
Footer Bg
  • Zoom More Photos Button
  • Camera Icon
LEARY: Is A. J. Foyt The Greatest Race Car Driver Of All Time?
Written by: Gregg Leary   
10/04/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
Watch racing legend A.J. Foyt on Wind Tunnel with Robin Miller tonight at 9pm ET on SPEED. (Photo: LAT) ยป More Photos


Watch racing legend A.J. Foyt on Wind Tunnel with Robin Miller tonight at 9pm ET on SPEED.

A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney top my list of the most versatile drivers of all time. Is A. J. #1? Let’s go to the horse’s mouth and find out.

“A.J. The Life of America’s Greatest Race Car Driver”
By A.J. Foyt
With William Neely
c. 1983

Born: January 16, 1935 (74)
Houston, TX

“He’s done everything he set out to do…with a flair of a Manolete (bull fighter) and a Dr. J and a Babe Ruth wrapped in one.” William Neely

“There never has been a driver who has won in every kind of race car-Indy cars, NASCAR stock cars, sports cars, sprints, midgets. Not only has he won in those cars, he has won four Indy 500s, the Daytona 500, Le Mans, and every other race of importance he has chosen to run.” WN

What motivated AJ as a kid was anyone who poked fun at his Dad’s race cars. He vowed that “someday I would get behind the wheel of a race car and show every single one of them. I was GOING to be Number One. I didn’t care what it took” AJ.

“You couldn’t BUY a ride at Indy; back then you had to work your ass off to EARN one. They really don’t make drivers like they used to.”

“What it took to be a winner was a hunger for the checkered flag that was stronger than anything else. Anything.”

“You don’t win Indy four times by being insecure. Or the USAC Championship seven times. Or Le Mans or the Daytona 500. I’m VERY competitive. I have a determination that just won’t quit.”

“Anytime I strap myself in a race car, I feel like I can win. Otherwise I wouldn’t be driving it.”

“Race drivers have gotten as lazy as the rest of the world. There’s only a handful of drivers out there today who would be willing to work as hard as I did to get to the top.”

“Years ago…all the cars were about the same. Then it was the driver that made the difference.”

“Nearly anybody could drive one of today’s Indy cars. With the ground effects and the wings and the wide, super-sticky tires, the car almost drives itself.” (1983)

“One of these new kids might be totally out of control at 150 MPH , where Mario Andretti or I might be IN control at 200. You have to know where your limit is, and a lot don’t.”

AJ’s dad built him his own race car when he was 3 years old. “I was the best three year old racer in Houston. Maybe the ONLY three year old racer in Houston.”

AJ won his first race at age 5…against an adult. AJ’s 3 HP micro-midget won the 3 lap match race at the Houston Speed Bowl.

AJ snuck his dad’s midget and ran it round and round the house. He hit the swingset, the side of the house and totally tore up the lawn.

AJ raced on the street in his Oldsmobile. His sister Marlene knew about it. She was into ballet as much as AJ was into racing. She blackmailed AJ. If he would dance with her, she wouldn’t tell about his street racing. (AJ was a very protective “big brother.” Her dates had to be approved by her dad AND AJ.)

AJ used to break into Arrowhead racetrack at night and race his car.

Finally his dad told him he could race…but he had to quit racing on the streets. AJ said “I never raced on the street again…that is, if you don’t count rental cars.”

AJ quit school in the middle of his senior year to race. “There just wasn’t a thing that participles and logarithms were going to do to help my racing career. Or Wordsworth for that matter.”

AJ snuck his dad’s midget to the local track and drove it at night without the track lights on. “Driving in the dark really hones your style.”

“There wasn’t anything in those days that drew attention to a race driver like a midget. There was something about them that said ‘macho.’”

“There’s nothing like the feel of a really good dirt car under you. It’s a sensation you can’t get doing anything else. Well, with your clothes on, anyway.”

AJ’s first race in the midget his dad built for him was at Playland Park. Foyt wore white pants and a red silk shirt and set a track record in qualifying. He complained that the car was not as fast as it was in practice. (His dad had retarded the magneto so he wouldn’t hurt himself.) AJ won the pole, the dash, the semi-main and the main event…from an inverted start. He started at the back and worked his way to the win.

“Racing was a lot different then. We all worked on our cars; we had fun, we raced, and we fought. In that order. But we were still friends.”

AJ and Jud Larson at Oklahoma City had a contest. They ran so close to the wall that their helmets left a mark on the white paint. They kept “swapping paint” on the wall...trying to see who could leave the longest streak. AJ’s dad got mad and said if he did it again he was loading the car on the trailer. AJ did…and his dad did. Dad punched AJ, knocked him down and he and a crew member sat on AJ so he couldn’t run the feature.

AJ was called “Fancy Pants” because he drove in a silk shirt and white pants in a nicely painted and professionally lettered car. (Most of the other drivers wore dirty t-shirts and drove junky race cars.)

AJ won the first time he drove a Sprint Car at Minot, ND.

“Of all the drivers on dirt, Tommy Hinnershitz stands out in my mind as the best. They actually sold advertising space on the BOTTOM of his car because it was up on two wheels so much.”

“In 1956 I made it to Indianapolis. Not exactly the Indianapolis 500, but I made it across the street from the Speedway, to the old quarter-mile asphalt track on West 16th…but the midget ran like it was made out of brick. I didn’t even make the main.” AJ tried to get in the Garage Area of the Speedway but was told, “Come back when you have a ride here instead of across the street.” He watched the Indy 500 from the Turn One grandstands.

AJ won his first USAC race in 1957…a 100 lapper at Kansas City. He drove 35 midget races, five Championship Series, 4 Sprints and a half dozen stock car races. He watched the 1957 Indy 500 from the Turn One grandstands.

AJ, the “overnight sensation” from Texas finally got a shot at Indy as a driver in 1958.

“It had only taken five years of hard work and sleeping in old garages and going hungry and a couple dozen crashes and every ounce of energy to become that ‘overnight sensation.’”

“Auto racing may have invented groupies. They were called ‘pit poppies.’”

AJ felt that Indianapolis Motor Speedway was “something solid and traditional, like
say, Plymouth Rock-wherever that was-or the Liberty Bell.”

“There is only one groove, where you can go wide open. It has something to do with some law of physics. And the size of your balls.”

Pat O’Connor befriended Foyt and showed Rookie AJ the fast way around the Speedway. O’Connor was killed in the race. “I vowed one thing when I left Indianapolis: I would never get close to any race driver again.”

AJ went to the Race of Two Worlds at Monza’s high banked track. “We were going past the Europeans about like you pass slower cars on the Interstate.”

“The banks there (Monza) were probably three times higher than the 12- degree banks of Indy.” (AJ won Indy 4 times...but it is NOT 12 degrees...it’s 9 degrees and 12 minutes.)

“I like to get to the front as soon as I can because it’s a lot easier to STAY there than to GET there…get the hard part over with first. I always eat the crust of the pie first, too. That saves the best part for last.”

In 1960 AJ took over the Bowe’s Seal Fast car with George Bignotti as mechanic. AJ won his first Champ Car race at Duquoin, then won the Hoosier Hundred at the Indianapolis Fairgrounds…and the 1960 USAC Championship.

AJ won the 1961 Indy 500. He won $111,000. The first feature he won in a midget paid $8.

“I threw things and George cussed. But when you got right down to it, we were a hell of a team.”

“I guess the press has had about as much to do with my success as anybody. They piss me off so much that I go out there to ‘show them.’ I’m almost glad they’re around. Almost.”

“This isn’t tennis or some pansy sport; this is auto racing, and it’s a dangerous sport.”

“As the defending national champion, I felt it was my responsibility to run as many USAC races as possible. It didn’t matter if it was a big race like the Hoosier Hundred or some dog-assed dirt race somewhere. I ran it. If fans in Milwaukee or Sacramento or wherever couldn’t get to Indianapolis to see the champion, the champion was going to come to them.”

“I’m not a good loser. I’ve seen a lot of ‘good losers.’ I don’t know about the ‘good’ part, but they’re ‘losers.’ If you’re good enough, you don’t have to be a loser.”

“What I set out to do…Drive race cars better than anybody who ever lived.”

“I always figured that a whole lot of those guys with college degrees didn’t know their asses from Page Eight.”

“There was one European, I’ll have to admit, who did look pretty good: Jimmy Clark. He seemed to be a little more like the rest of us, and not as much like the other foreigners.”

AJ said he could count on one hand and have a few fingers left over, of drivers who can do well in a poor-handling race car. Jim Clark and Eddie Sachs were two.

“It was very important to me that I make a name for myself in all types of racing. There had never been a driver who had been great in all of them. I intended to be the first. And maybe the only.”

“Parnelli and Jim Hurtubise and I were the last to admit it-but the rear-engine cars were the cars of the future. They handled better and were faster.”

1964: AJ wins Indy 500. Newspaper handed to him in Victory Lane:

FOYT WINNER IN 500

SACHS, MACDONALD DIE

“I guess you could say I’m a flag waver-strictly American. I won’t even drive foreign cars. Hell, I won’t even wear a shirt with French cuffs.”

“First is first and second is nowhere.”

“Number 14 had been a lucky number at the Speedway. Bill Vukovich, Tony Bettenhausen, Wilbur Shaw and Louie Meyer had used it. It had a good history.”

“Nobody’s going to back me into a corner. If I’m wrong, I’ll go to the corner myself.”

“I won’t endorse anything I don’t believe in.”

“Racing is a sport that takes 100 percent concentration, 100 percent of the time.”

“When I’m in a race car, I’ve got one thing in mind: passing everybody.”

Formula One: “To me their follow-the-leader stuff isn’t racing. I’m used to balls-out running and wheel-to-wheel competition Anything less than that doesn’t interest me.”

“I never felt an American driver got a fair shake in Europe. Andretti ran over there, and he won the world championship, but he was born over there. He’s one of them. I was born and raised here. I don’t need to go over there. I’ve won their best race-Le Mans-and I’ve raced against their best drivers over here, and I never thought they were too tough. They just don’t charge hard like our drivers. There are two exceptions: Jimmy Clark and Jackie Stewart. They’re as good as any drivers I’ve ever run against.”

“Robin Miller wrote that over the years Goodyear had given me special tires and that everybody had given me special equipment-things other drivers couldn’t get. Well that’s so much bullsh*t. So I grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall.”

“There are some drivers that I wouldn’t follow into the men’s room. If they don’t know any more about what they’re doing in there than they do on a racetrack, a man could get wet.”

“I’ve had my ups and downs, but I’ve had a lot of fun in life, and I’ve made a good living doing something I love to do. I’ve made it happen. I’ve worked hard at being number one. I told my family years ago, ‘Never settle for second.’ I’ve never learned to settle for second. It’s a little late to change now.”

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Gregg Leary is a Researcher/Writer for "Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain","The SPEED Report", book reviewer and columnist for SPEEDtv.com. Leary was track announcer for Hooter's IHRA Drag Racing at National Events in the USA and Canada and entertained event crowds during "down time". He was Marketing, PR Director and track announcer at Lake Erie Speedway. Leary covered Auto Racing, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association. Leary has conducted motivational seminars and performed stand-up comedy around the country. Leary is available for motorsports consulting on a limited basis. Contact him via email at

Play Super 7 Sweep Fantasy Racing powered by Wind Tunnel!



The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel
View All Comments