Does A.J. Foyt really think he can win a fifth Indy 500 trophy Sunday? Or is the tempestuous Texan simply blowing smoke at the age of 52?
Old A.J., the only driver to win four Indy titles, was feted by his Copenhagen Racing sponsors Friday night at a party in a downtown hotel commemorating Foyt`s 30th running of the Indy 500.
Foyt, who only Thursday smacked his Lola Cosworth into the wall in practice, is honest in appraisals of his chances of winning Sunday.
”It`s all according to how the car is handling,” Foyt said. ”I hope to do nothing foolish. But I`m a different guy when I get that helmet on. I run out of brains sometimes.
”This is gonna be a hard race. I don`t know how fast it will be, because a lot of people are skitterish about the (slippery) track. But it figures to be a tough race, and a lot of them guys will get in trouble if they`re not careful.”
When Foyt went into the wall Thursday during Carburetion Day, followed less than an hour later by Emerson Fittipaldi, veteran observers sat up and took notice. The accidents were significant, not just because they raised the month`s crash toll to 23 but because of the identities of the two drivers who were involved.
These were not Johnny Nobodies riding their kiddie cars. These latest wallbangers were Foyt, perhaps the most famous driver in the history of auto racing, and Fittipaldi, a two-time Formula I world champion.
Foyt hadn`t hit the Speedway walls on his own since 1966, and Fittipaldi`s crash was his first at Indy. It totaled his car and will force him to start his back-up at the rear of the field.
Foyt, who appears to have mellowed considerably in the last couple of years–he smiles and waves at sportswriters occasionally instead of shoving them out of the way–wants a victory Sunday as he has never wanted one before. ”I won`t quit,” he said in response to a question that once might have gotten the interrogator a monkey wrench in the face. ”I know that day
(retirement) is coming up. That`s why I have a couple of young boys (Davy Jones and Stan Fox) in my racing team this year.
”I`m not kidding myself about the future. I know I don`t have a lot of racing left in me. But I still hate to get beat. And as long as I have that competitive feeling in me, I think I can keep going.”
Pole-sitter Mario Andretti, evaluating Foyt along with such other old-timers as Johnny Rutherford and Dick Simon who will start the race in the front three rows, said, ”A.J. doesn`t work as hard as he needs to work if he wants to win.”
Foyt didn`t appear to take offense at Andretti`s assessment.
”I`ve been getting beat pretty good the last couple of years,” Foyt said. ”I finally realized that I had to spend more time with my cars and crew.”
Foyt ran his first Indy 500 in 1958, starting 12th and finishing 16th after spinning out on the 148th lap.
”It`s a heck of a difference between now and then,” he said with a laugh. ”Then I wore a Dean Van Lines T-shirt and an old cloth helmet.
”When I first started racing, everybody said I wouldn`t live to be 21, so I just made liars of a bunch of people. I did miss one or two opportunities of leaving you all, but I figured I`d rather needle y`all than get on y`all`s butt.
”But seriously, I never thought I`d run this long. Thirty years, three decades. What does it mean? It means I still know my way around here.
”This old racetrack–I heard it from the old-timers before I got here
–has a mind of its own. You can test here and run 200 miles per hour
(earlier in the year). Then you come back the first of May and you can`t get it up over 190 even though you haven`t changed a thing.”
