Anthony Joseph Foyt Jr. (born January 16, 1935) is an American retired racing driver who competed in numerous disciplines of motorsport, best known for his open wheel racing career, and as the first four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. He holds the most American National Championship titles in history with seven.
Foyt competed in United States Automobile Club (USAC) Championship cars, sprint cars and midget cars. He raced 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.
Foyt is the only driver to have won the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Daytona 500, and the 24 Hours of Daytona. He is a member of numerous motorsports halls of fame.
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.
Early life Foyt was born in Houston, Texas, to Anthony Joseph "Tony" Foyt and Emma Evelyn (née Monk). His father was a mechanic who owned and raced midget race cars as a hobby. Foyt's father gave A.J. a toy racer with a lawnmower engine when he was three years old. His first victory took place at age five after he challenged local midget champion Doc Cossey to a match race at Buffalo Stadium. Foyt won, and later recalled: "...if ever a kid knew that he had chosen the right profession for himself, I knew it at that moment." Tony recalled leaving eleven-year-old A.J. home to attend a race and returning to find the boy had done considerable damage to the home driving the family's other race car in the yard, including causing the car's engine to catch on fire. Though angry, the older Foyt did accept the likelihood of his son having a future as a driver.
Frequently in fights, he often ran home from school shortly after being dropped off in the morning. On one occasion a teacher called his mother to complain that his homework was covered with racing cars. After obtaining a driver's license, he purchased a used Ford and practiced mechanical skills he had learned working on his father's cars. He participated in street races until police turned him in to his parents. Foyt eventually dropped out of high school to work as a mechanic and to concentrate on racing.
Driving career
Midget car 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 no longer raced midget cars full-time after 1957 but participated as his schedule allowed. 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. At the height of his success, Foyt made occasional appearances in small, local events to support promoters who assisted him in his early career.
Sprint car career 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. Foyt continued to race sprint cars long after he was firmly established as one of the top drivers at the Indy 500.
Championship car career
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 1958, Foyt raced in Italy in the Trophy of the Two Worlds at Monza.
Ford-powered entries were widely expected to dominate the 1964 Indianapolis 500. Discussions between Ford officials and Foyt (who had a stock car contract with Ford at the time) took place regarding the possibility of Foyt taking over the third Team Lotus-Ford. Foyt wanted the use of the car for the entire month, but Lotus team owner Colin Chapman refused to promise him the reserve car, in case something happened to cars driven by team drivers Jim Clark and Dan Gurney. So 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. The race is remembered for the fiery second-lap crash that claimed the lives of Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs.
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.
Sports car racing 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.
Stock car career
USAC Stock Car Foyt was the champion in USAC's stock car in 1968, 1978, and 1979. He finished second in 1963 and 1969, and third in 1970."USAC Stock Car Championship History" , ultimateracinghistory.com, Retrieved September 7, 2007
NASCAR Foyt, a veteran who had been racing professionally for eight seasons before trying his hand at NASCAR, only needed ten races to get his first victory. Richard Petty dominated the 1964 Firecracker 400 until dropping out with engine problems. Foyt swapped the lead with Bobby Isaac for the final fifty laps of the summer event at the Daytona International Speedway. Foyt passed Isaac on the final lap to win the race.
In January 1965, Foyt qualified and ran in the front of the pack most of the day with Dan Gurney and Parnelli Jones in the Motor Trend 500 at Riverside International Raceway. Jones retired with mechanical issues, leaving Gurney and Foyt contesting the lead until Foyt spun late in the race. After running hard to catch up with Gurney, Foyt's brakes failed at the end of Riverside's mile-long, downhill back straight. Foyt went into the infield at speed, launched off an embankment, dropped into a lower area, and slammed into a second embankment, tumbling end-over-end several times. The track doctor pronounced Foyt dead at the scene, but Jones revived him. Foyt suffered severe chest injuries, a broken back, and a fractured ankle. Footage of this is featured in the final scene of Red Line 7000.
Foyt ran out of gas near the end of the 1971 Daytona 500, and Petty passed him for the win. Foyt won the 1972 Daytona 500, and in 1979, Foyt finished third.
Foyt won the 1971 and 1972 races at the Ontario Motor Speedway for Wood Brothers Racing. His final win in NASCAR was in the first of Daytona's 125-mile qualifying heats in 1978, driving a self-fielded superspeedway Buick.
In 1988, Foyt was banned from NASCAR for six months and fined $5000 following a series of incidents during the Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Later, the suspension was lifted, though the fine increased to $7500.
Foyt's final NASCAR Winston Cup Series race was the 1994 Brickyard 400. Foyt finished 30th. Foyt failed to qualify in 1995 and 1996.
Foyt raced three times in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, with a best finish of 18th in the 1995 GM Goodwrench/Delco Battery 200, in which he qualified ninth.
Smokey Yunick wrote in his autobiography that, "A.J. Foyt, I think, was the greatest race driver there ever has been in U.S. racing history so far...A.J. Foyt could beat your ass in anything that had a motor and wheels."
Career summary Foyt drove in the Indianapolis 500 for 35 consecutive years, winning four times. Foyt is the only driver to win the Indy 500 in both front and rear-engined cars. Foyt is the only driver to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans (with Dan Gurney), and the Indianapolis 500 in the same year (1967). He is the only driver with victories in the Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500, 24 Hours of Daytona (1983 and 1985 with co-driver Bob Wollek), 24 Hours of Le Mans, and 12 Hours of Sebring (in 1985, with co-driver Bob Wollek). He is one of twelve drivers to complete the Triple Crown of endurance racing (12 Hours of Sebring, 24 Hours of Daytona, and 24 Hours of Le Mans).