Texas
By A.J. Foyt


The Indy car race at Texas Motor Speedway is second only to the Indianapolis 500 because as everyone knows, to a Texan, Texas is the best. I’m always very busy at that race because I have a lot of friends and family who think like me. So the pressure on my ABC Supply team to run well there is greater than at the other races—with the exception of our sponsor’s home race at Milwaukee, which didn’t go well at all this year.


Looking for the best available driver, I asked my grandson A.J. Foyt IV to drive the No.14 ABC Supply car at Texas because he runs good at that high-speed 1.5-mile oval. He hasn’t had the best luck there, and lately, neither have we as a team but I was hoping to change that this weekend.


Well it didn’t happen.


On Thursday, we practiced at night and were pretty happy with the No. 14 Honda-powered Dallara--we were in the top-10 when we quit running. A few guys popped in a quick lap right at the end but we were satisfied that the car was running good. It was the same in practice the next afternoon where we ended up 12th but felt confident about qualifying.


When Anthony turned in a strong warm-up lap in qualifying, I started thinking maybe even a top-6 run. Well it didn’t happen. His four-lap average speed was slower! He ended up 22nd on the grid! In talking with the Honda engineers, they felt we were geared too high. I agreed and we made the changes for Saturday night’s race which started at 8:40pm Texas (Central) Time...past my bedtime.


Anthony got a great start—he picked up six positions! Graham Rahal’s accident on lap two eliminated him and two other cars but Anthony was already ahead of them on lap one. The more Anthony ran, the more his ABC Supply car’s handling changed; it started “pushing” or flying the front end.


I had set the car up to push in the beginning but it pushed a little too much and Anthony had to throttle her down which he did. Because it wasn’t handling that well, he lost speed and leader Ryan Briscoe was flying. Anthony pitted before he was lapped but he’d lost so much track position while fighting the push, that he lost a lap when he pitted. On the first stop, we put in a turn of front wing to add downforce to the front of the car. Anthony said that it helped but after 20-30 laps the car started pushing again. We should have added two turns.


When he made his next pit stop—again under green flag conditions and again losing another lap to the leader—we put in two more turns of front wing. Anthony said that made the car a little loose at the beginning of the run but much better throughout the run. That was obvious on the computer because his lap times had really picked up. He came out of the pits in 19th and worked his way into 15th by passing cars on the track.


There was a caution flag for debris on lap 150 and when Anthony pitted, the stop was quick enough (7.6 seconds) that he went from 15th to 14th and we took out a half-turn of front wing. Anthony was running with the lead pack at this point because the ABC Supply car was handling well. In fact he set his quickest lap of the race on lap 166. I started to think we were going to get a good finish out of this race.


Well it didn't happen.


He was running 13th when the left front suspension broke going into turn one on lap 172. The cameras didn’t catch it until he slid across the track into the inside wall. We didn’t know what happened so we kept watching the TV monitor to see a replay which didn’t show how it started. We saw him get out of the car which was a relief because the car didn’t look too good on TV.


He said the left front went down, spun and slid backwards into the outside wall and then came across the track and hit the inside wall. It hit hard enough in the rear to break the engine.


It could have been a lot worse and we’re all grateful that Anthony got out with just a few cuts and bruises. It helps that he’s in great shape and only 25 years old.


He was ok--except for the disappointment. Even though you know it’s not your fault, you just feel bad. I felt bad for him because he was running a good race—keeping it off the wall when the car wasn’t running that good, and running quick laps when we fixed the car’s handling.


The suspension failure was our fault, plain and simple. A bolt broke on the pushrod. We are changing the procedures for installation so it doesn’t happen again. To be honest, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. We had a meeting that night and two team meetings on Monday. I felt a change in attitude when I went to the shop today which I take as a good sign.


So far it’s been a tough season for my ABC Supply team but we are going to turn it around.


Starting now.