Oval, road course, Vision Racing, A.J. Foyt IV, Ed Carpenter
52 IndyCarSeries #23
LEARNING THE RIGHT WAY
GRANDPA WASN’T A BIG FAN...
Road courses? A.J. Foyt can take ’em or leave ’em
A.J. Foyt isn’t lacking road course wins
on his resumé. He’s won the 24 Hours
at Daytona twice, the 12 Hours of
Sebring, the 24 Hours of Le Mans
and the Nassau Trophy. He’s won at
Silverstone and Mosport. Why, he even
won the Paul Revere 250 at Daytona
in 1983 – with a cracked vertebrae
suffered earlier in the day in a
NASCAR Winston Cup crash.
But Foyt wasn’t necessarily drawn to
road racing during his illustrious career.
“I didn’t go out of my way to go
road racing; I mainly went when I had
to go,” the four-time Indianapolis 500
champion says. “If there was a choice
between a road race and a sprint car
race, I went to the sprint car race.
“I never enjoyed road racing as
much as oval racing. In road racing,
you can mess up in one corner and
make it up in the next. It doesn’t take
that much finesse. With oval racing, you
“There are still
a lot of rough
days when we’re
not very happy
with ourselves”
ED CARPENTER
have to be more precise at both ends
of the track. Yeah, road racing is a lot
more forgiving than racing on an oval,
but if you make mistakes on an oval,
it’s going to cost you.”
He learned that time and again on
dirt and pavement, paying in points
and places. But road racing almost
cost Foyt his life – multiple times.
In 1965, at Riverside, a brake
adjuster broke entering Turn 9. He
was pronounced dead by a track
medic, but Parnelli Jones saved him
by scooping the dirt out of his mouth.
Foyt suffered a broken back, bruised
aorta and fractured heel.
In 1990, at Road America, a brake
pedal broke on his Lola heading into
Turn 1. He suffered injuries to his left
knee and both feet and ankles that
affect him to this day.
A.J. Foyt Racing driver Darren Manning
has provided solid results for the team on
road/street courses, and Foyt is pleased
to see the progress of his grandson,
A.J. IV, with Vision Racing.
“He was good on them in the
karts and formula cars, where you
can throw the car around and recover
quickly,” Foyt says. “Now he’s learned
to handle them in the much heavier
IndyCar Series car. I think he’s doing
a good job.”
(Above) A.J. Foyt’s ’67 24 Hours of Le Mans
victory, with Dan Gurney, is the highlight
of an impressive road racing resume – but
he much preferred ovals. (Below) Four
seasons into his task, Ed Carpenter is
emerging from the road racing shadows
LAT Archive
Darrell Ingham/Getty Images
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