November 20, 2014Baylor-St. Luke’s Medical Center
It’s a week before Thanksgiving, and A.J. Foyt is asleep in a hospital bed in Houston. His chest heaves up and down, but the air in his lungs isn’t his own. For eight days, a ventilator has been aiding his breathing.
After triple bypass heart surgery, he had severe complications. Doctors put him in a coma to heal, but he isn’t getting better.
A.J. and his wife, Lucy, had discussed what they would do in a situation like this. She knew he didn’t want to use extraordinary measures to keep him alive.
A hospital stay isn’t anything new for A.J. Both during and after his racing career he’s had injuries, health complications, long hospitalizations and even longer rehabs. But this time is different. This time it seems like they might really lose him.
Still, every day A.J.’s family members have come through the door expecting him to be awake. Expecting him to complain about the hospital. Or the food. Or the medicine. Instead, they find him quietly in bed. Eyes closed.
Then, suddenly, he starts to heal. His lungs get stronger. Doctors believe he can breathe on his own. They slowly take him off the anesthesia and wake him from his slumber.
He opens his eyes to a hospital room. Even with the 500 more than six months and 1,000 miles away, he thinks he’s in Indianapolis.
May 8, 2015Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Qualifying Day for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis
In the pits at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the smells of cigarette smoke, funnel cakes and ketchup give way to burnt rubber and car engines, the A.J. Foyt Racing team is prepped for practice.
A.J.’s first driver, 38-year-old Takuma Sato (#14), from Japan, is off. He squeals out of the pits and onto the track.
Then A.J. arrives. He drives up in a cart with his buddy Jack Housby. They’ve been friends for more than 50 years. They met racing stock cars together and later, when Housby founded a Mack truck company in Des Moines, they formed a business relationship. He’s A.J.’s constant companion at the races.
A.J. pulls his 80-year-old body out of the cart and walks with a slight limp, a slow horizontal bobbing from foot to foot, then settles into the only chair connected to Sato’s timing stand, a cart with computer screens where team engineers assess data. A.J. holds most of his 250 pounds or so in his chest and stomach, but still looks solid, not soft. He has a round face, squinting eyes usually shaded by a baseball cap, and reddish skin that’s seen many Texas summers. He turns to look at the pit crew.
His other driver, the 24-year-old Jack Hawksworth (#41) from England, pulls out and onto the track. Practice begins.
Car engines groan and A.J. puts on his headset. He leans way back in the chair with his arms crossed. He looks at the leader board. The loudspeaker announces, “A.J. Foyt’s cars are eighth and ninth!”
It’s the first practice on qualifying day of the Angie’s List Grand Prix, the race that kicks off a month of events at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, culminating in the 500 in late May. A.J. is a living legend here. The first person to win the 500 four times: 1961, ‘64, ‘67 and ‘77. One of the best racers of all time and, for many, still the face of the 500. Today, fans are free to roam through the pits, and everybody wants a glimpse of A.J.
A man and his girlfriend stop. Through the noise, he says, “I bet that’s A.J. right there.” He asks her to snap a picture of him with A.J. in the background, but not too close. One woman points and yells, “Look it’s him!” She turns to her friend and they giggle. A man who works at the Speedway says to a colleague, “A.J. looks good. Doesn’t A.J. look good?”
People pour past his seat, taking pictures, making comments, pointing fingers. Young kids in crop tops and sneakers. Old men with leathery skin and business portfolios. Trophy wives in high heels and short skirts. They all love him.
He’s the king of the speedway. The Texas high school dropout who won his first race in a car he built with his daddy. The winner of 67 IndyCar races. The only driver to start in 35 Indy 500 races in a row. The only driver to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans (with Dan Gurney) — the signature events for Indy Cars, NASCAR and Sportscars. Named “Driver of the Century” by the Associated Press. If there was an Indianapolis 500 scavenger hunt, “Spotting A.J. Foyt” would be just after “Kissing the bricks” and just before “Watching the winner drink milk.”
And they almost lost him in the offseason this winter. When a tingle in his chest turned into heart surgery and then into a coma, they didn’t know if they would ever see him again. What would the month of May in Indiana be without A.J. Foyt? Now, here he is, sitting in his rightful seat, reigning over the Speedway for another year. They can’t help but be excited.
It was a little much for A.J. The first Grand Prix practice yesterday was his first major race appearance since being hospitalized. Everyone — fans, employees, speedway workers, drivers, team managers — wanted to tell him how good it was to see him back at a race. When he left practice, he was swarmed outside the garage. At least 30 people were thrusting pens and markers at him to sign their cars, flags and papers. He didn’t mind doing a few, but he was tired. And he always wondered how many of his autographs ended up on eBay. When he was in the hospital, he set a goal to make it to the Indy 500, and he was going to damn well be there. He just wishes people were a little more considerate.
So today, to avoid the crowds, he and Housby make a plan to sneak back to the race shop to avoid the fanfare. As they get in their cart, a man behind the fence turns to his friend with a grin. “I’m the only person he would take a picture with earlier at the garage. He told everyone else to piss off.
“That’s A.J. Foyt. I waited 40 years for that.”
He waves and A.J. waves back. “Welcome back, Super Tex!”
Nov. 7, 2014Just outside Houston, Texas
A.J. didn’t think much of the tingle at first. He was about 30 feet out in the woods on his hands and knees, laying a water and electric line to a new horse barn, on a little piece of land he had just bought when he felt something in his chest. He thought it must be nothing, so he finished the job.
It had become his new hobby — buying land and clearing it with a bulldozer, tearing up the brush and knocking down small trees. People were always giving him hell about doing the work himself. Hire someone, they said, you’ve got the money. But it wasn’t about the money — he likes things done a particular way. When you hire someone to do it, they do it their way, and to hell with that. He would laugh when people gave him grief about relaxing.
“I always feel like when you get too damn lazy to work, you ought to lay down and die,” he said. “You’re no good for nothing anyway.”
At about a quarter to 2, when he finished laying the line, he and a boy from the shop went to get lunch. He still felt the burning, so he called his doctor and his daughter-in-law, Nancy, drove him to the hospital. That was the first real sign of trouble. There must be something wrong, she thought, if he was willing to let someone else drive.
He needed triple bypass heart surgery. There were complications. It didn’t look good. He slipped into the coma, and doctors told his family it could be the end.
Then he got better. The same stubborn will that enabled him to win the 1983 Paul Revere 250 with two broken vertebrae, had prevailed again, breathing life into his dying body. He was alive. It was a miracle. But doctors said it would be a long recovery.
Foyt could take the pain. As a professional race car driver he had survived three major crashes and countless injuries. Broken back. Serious burns on his face and hands. Broken legs. Injuries from being run over by his own car. After a suffering a severe compound fracture of his right arm at the inaugeral running of the Michigan 500 in 1981, he famously healed it by painting the length of the fence at his 1,500-acre ranch. More recently, as an amateur bulldozer driver, he was bitten by a poisonous spider, stung more than 200 times by a swarm of killer bees and injured when his tractor fell into the lake. Every time he was hurt, he hated going to the hospital. He liked doing things, and in the hospital he had to sit all day. The only place he ever liked to sit was in a car.
His love of eating had contributed to his waistline over the years, and likely led to his heart trouble. Cheeseburgers, fried chicken, ice cream. In the hospital, the doctors tried to get him to eat vegetables. He told them, “Doc, that’s not gonna happen.” But all food tasted terrible. He lost his appetite. In all, he lost 50 pounds.
In the hospital, he developed sores on his rear end and the bandages had to be changed twice a day by a nurse. He joked to his friends that at 80 years old he never dreamed his butt would be played with so much. Then a spot on his hand wouldn’t heal. They did a biopsy, found skin cancer and scheduled a procedure to remove it.
After 25 days in the hospital, he was cleared to go home, but he was weak. He still needed someone to change the bandages. And, in the beginning, the man who drove more than 11,000 miles racing around the racetrack in Indianapolis could barely walk a few feet. Slowly, he progressed from needing assistance on a walker to a cane.
His first big outing from the house was his 80th birthday party held in January in the race shop. It was a small gathering with a cake. He put on a brave face, but he was exhausted after the two-hour get-together. In March, he convinced one of the guys in the shop to help him onto his bulldozer so he could dig up some trees and debris. Everyone in the shop held their breath, thinking he wasn’t quite ready to operate machinery, but no one was brave enough to tell him that.
His real goal was to make it to the Indianapolis 500. He had been there for more than 50 years in a row, first as a driver and then as a team owner. It would feel wrong to be anywhere else. It’s what made him. It’s what took a mechanic and turned him into a star — one of the greatest racers in history. And even after winning a staggering number of races all over the world, his first Indy win in 1961 still meant the most.
So, he put his mind to it to be there, and when he put his mind to something it was as good as done. He rested as much as he could (he still did some work on the bulldozer), and he even started eating a salad every once in a while. He learned to change the bandages without the nurse’s help. There was only a small mix up where he was looking into the mirror and put it on upside down.
And he made plans to be there. He booked a hotel room for a month at the Westin downtown and rented a spot for his motor home at the infield to rest and escape the crowds. He felt pretty good. In fact, in March he felt so good that he decided to take a day trip to New Orleans for a test session in advance of the Grand Prix of Louisiana, a short flight there and back from his home in Houston. At the beginning of May he took another trip to the Kentucky Derby to watch his second favorite kind of racing.
He was ready for Indy.
May 9, 2015 Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Morning of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis
The A.J. Foyt racing team is ready for the final warm up practice. Larry Foyt, A.J.’s biological grandson and adopted son, is hobnobbing in the pits — shaking hands and making small talk. He’s young with black hair and a wide smile. He was promoted to president of A.J. Foyt Enterprises Inc. in the offseason, a formality to recognize a role he’s been playing for the past several years. But he still insists that A.J. is “The Boss.”
The team has made a few adjustments since yesterday. Hawksworth qualified 11th and Sato came in 22nd after what the team felt was an unfair block. In Sato’s final lap, Justin Wilson came out of the pits and forced him to lose speed. Larry yelled into his radio and filed a complaint, but it was dismissed. Larry was professional, but clearly still upset.
A.J. wasn’t there to witness the scuffle. The first practice took a lot out of him, and he decided to skip qualifying. It was rare for A.J. to miss it, but he promised his team and family he would rest if he needed it. He wanted to be strong for the 500, 15 days away. Housby flashed an ornery smile, “It’s probably a good thing that A.J. was out at the motor home.”
Larry and A.J.’s leadership styles are decidedly different. Larry has ambitious business plans. He expanded the team this year to running two cars all season long, the first time A.J. Foyt racing has been a two-car team since 2002. He’s also great with the press and sponsors.
A.J. was, well, A.J. As a driver and owner, he yelled at the press and at fans more than once. He’s thrown wrenches at the pit crew, banged on his car when he got pissed and kicked stuff over. A.J. once grabbed journalist Robin Miller and pulled his hair because he said A.J. had cheated. If A.J. were still in charge, yesterday’s conflict might have gone a little differently.
Today, for the final practice on race day, former president A.J. is mellow. As always, he and Housby arrive together in the golf cart. He uses a black step stool that stays hidden under the timing stand to hoist his body into the chair. Practice begins and Hawksworth, then Sato, pull onto the track.
A.J. watches the race like it’s his first. His eyebrows move upward from their position in his typical stern stare. His eyes open wide. His lips part. He even leans way forward in his seat and strains his neck, as if he could see the cars coming a little farther into the turn.
Everywhere he looks holds a memory.
The starting line. He was 23, almost Hawksworth’s age, when he drove on the speedway for the first time in 1958, and qualifying for his first Indianapolis 500 mile race was the thrill of a lifetime. His daddy was so proud.
The pits. This is where races are won and lost. Late in the 1961 race, he stopped for fuel, but there was an error, and he returned to the race without enough to finish. Eddie Sachs pushed hard to keep up, but shredded a tire. Meanwhile Foyt pitted again, but only for enough fuel to finish, just a splash, and raced out of the pits to win his first 500 by just more than 8 seconds.
Turn One. It was 1966 and on the first lap between the starting line and turn one, Bill Foster lost control and spun, resulting in a 14-car crash. A.J.’s car was damaged and he jumped out to avoid a fire. Worried about getting hit, he climbed the fence to get out of the way and hurt his hand. Even with the wreck, A.J.’s hand was the only injury of the day.
Turn Two. In 1955 he was 20 years old sitting in the stands near turn two watching his first Indianapolis 500. He thought maybe one day he’d be lucky enough to have the chance to race in it.
Turn Three. In the last lap of the 1967 race, A.J. had an odd thought about what would happen in a final-lap crash. So, in turn three of the final lap of the race, he uncharacteristically slowed down, lifting his foot from the accelerator. Out ahead of him, a multi-car crash broke out. A.J. sliced around the wreckage under control, took the lead and won the race.
Turn Four. In 1964, four cars, including A.J.’s, were leading the way and fighting for the win, but two had mechanical failures and the third had a fuel tank explode. He was left alone in the lead to easily take his second win. But victory was not so sweet. On the second lap of the race there had been a fiery, seven-car crash coming out of turn four involving two of his friends and competitors, Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. Upon exiting his car to celebrate, he learned that they didn’t make it. He would never forget it.
Today, Hawksworth and Sato are running in the middle of the pack. Sato is 12th, then 13th. Hawksworth is 10th, then 11th. Sato drops to 15th. In the end, Hawksworth comes in 12th and Sato is 14th.
A fan comes to the fence. “Super Tex! Glad to see you back, buddy!” Foyt smiles and hobbles to the cart. He and Housby drive back to the garage, where he shakes off an autograph.
He’s doesn’t like to be rude, but he’s tired. People have said that a race is a marathon, and that might be true. But today, for A.J., it’s a series of short sprints, moving from checkpoint to checkpoint. He would like to floor it, but he can’t. Instead, he tries to plan for what’s just around the next turn, and, right now that’s a padded chair in the shop.
May 9, 2015Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Afternoon of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis
Back at the shop, A.J. and Housby sit at a high table. It’s a sprawling garage, taking up most of the first row of “Gasoline Alley.” One end is divided from the garage and has a few tables with chairs and an ice cream freezer, though it’s not Blue Bunny, A.J.’s favorite, from Texas.
Eddie Cheever, now a race analyst for ESPN and ABC, drops by and joins them at the table. Cheever raced for A.J. in the ‘90s, and he wants to check in on the legend.
Cheever often thinks about the first time he met A.J. He was a nervous young racer, and he approached A.J. to ask for some advice. His response? “Keep turning left.”
He almost walked right by A.J. on the track the day before. He thought he was too skinny to be A.J.
They exchange pleasantries and then Housby launches into a story. A.J. grins. He loves to listen to Housby tell stories.
“You know what he did, don’t you?” Housby says with raised eyebrows.
“What?” Eddie asks smiling.
He decided to take matters into his own hands …”
Cheever leans forward.
“He put horse medicine on his sores,” he says. “Stuff he got from his veterinarian.”
A.J. had seen the medicine clear up infections in horses. It took some convincing, but he finally persuaded his nurse to slather it on his wounds.
Cheever laughs. “Is that right?”
“That’s the truth,” A.J. says emphatically, shaking his head. “Doctor says they’re healin’ up good.”
The three men laugh and talk for a few more minutes. Before he leaves, Cheever asks if they’ll be at an upcoming race.
“We’ll be there,” Housby says. “We might have to ship our ashes there, but we’ll be there.”
It’s not wholly a joke. In July 2014 Housby was diagnosed with cancer. Rounds of chemotherapy and radiation at Mayo Clinic in Arizona hadn’t been able to beat it. Behind the 80-year old’s brave face and sharp dress shirt, slacks and suspenders, cancer was ravaging his body.
A.J. had weathered other health issues in the last several years — leg pain, knee surgery, back surgery, hip surgery — some due to old injuries and others sustained during his new hobby of clearing properties.
When Housby told him he was sick, A.J. said, “You son of a bitch, it’s your turn now. You’re old as hell.”
They’re competitive with one another — urging the other one not to give up on life just yet. Needling each other is their way of pumping each other up, from getting down. They’d rather joke about it. How long are you gonna live? Think we’re gonna make it much longer?
When Housby turned 80 this year, six days before A.J., he gave him a call.
“Well I made it,” Housby said. “You’ve got a week to go, cowboy!”
The two have always been close, but have grown considerably closer in the last year.
During the worst bout of Housby’s cancer, he called A.J.
“Bring me a gun up here,” he said.
“You’re braver than that aren’t you?” A.J. asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then don’t be an idiot.”
A.J. was worried. “I’m gonna call you every day,” he said. “And you better be there to answer it.”
So he did. Each day they would talk on the phone about their families, their health, how much they hated hospitals.
When A.J. had heart surgery, Housby was feeling better, and the roles reversed. Housby started calling A.J. every day.
During one call A.J. said, “Jack, you asked me for a gun. Why don’t you bring me one? I think I’m ready to get out of here.”
“Nope,” Housby said. “You know what you told me.”
Indianapolis was the first race they’d attended together since Housby’s diagnosis. A.J. hated to think about it, but he couldn’t help but wonder if this might be their last time in Indianapolis together.
May 9, 2015Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Running of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis
A line of people forms in the pits near where A.J. is sitting in the swivel chair. After a few minutes he stands and puts on a smile. They each have a message for him, and the processional of selfies with A.J. begins.
“How you feeling A.J.? Hang in there, man.”
Smile. Click.
“Thank you so much. My dad was your biggest fan.”
Smile. Click.
“I gotta get a picture with you.”
Smile. Click.
“You are the greatest of all time!”
Smile Click.
“Pleasure to meet you.”
Smile. Click.
A man approaches with a piece of paper for A.J. to sign. It’s his baby’s sonogram. A.J. looks at it and signs.
A few minutes later, the drivers start to grid and the fans go to their seats. Soon, Hawksworth and Sato are racing.
“Make sure everything’s warm,” Larry tells the drivers through the radio. “It’s a start this time.”
Then something goes wrong. Hawksworth gets squeezed. He moves over. There’s a wreck. He’s OK, but they haul the car into the pits to replace his front wing. A.J. stands and cranes his neck to assess the damage. Meanwhile, Sato is able to take advantage of the multi-car accident and vaults from 22nd to 12th on the first lap.
The pit crew repairs Hawksworth’s car and he’s back on the track. After pitting early, Sato slips to 20th, but then regains position.
At lap 25, Larry tells Sato, “The race is right there in front of you. Go get ‘em.”
The timing stand holds a row of computers. The men around him — the engineers and team managers and Larry — focus intently on the screens, but A.J. looks out at the track. When Sato and Hawksworth come in for pit stops, he leans forward and examines the crew, how the car looks, what they’re fixing, how they work. The others stick to the screens, assessing data. When he raced, there were no screens. A.J.’s data was experience, and he stored it all in his mind.
The race falls into place for Sato and he slowly climbs up the leaderboard. With six laps to go, he moves into ninth place.
“Perfect,” Larry says. “Good job. There’s no one behind you. No one behind you.” Then later, “Good job. Three to go.”
On the final lap, the crew holds their breath, hoping he holds on. Sato comes in smooth and takes ninth: the second top-10 finish of the season for A.J. Foyt Racing. A.J. takes a picture with Sato and then leaves to rest up.
“Good job everyone,” Larry says. “Great job in the pits, good stops. We’ve got a little momentum going into the 500.”
May 24, 2015Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Running of the Indianapolis 500
The day is finally here. A.J. slowly paces the race shop. Leaning against tables. Walking to the other side to talk to a mechanic. If he keeps moving, maybe he won’t have to sign any more autographs. Fans cluster outside — some have been there for hours. When he finally emerges, they clap and chant his name. “A.J.! A.J.! A.J.!”
When he arrives at the track, there is a long line of white convertibles. For the last few years, the track has organized a pre-race legends lap, where former Indy 500 winners are driven around the track.
A.J. steps into the backseat of the first convertible and hoists himself up onto the back, where a beauty queen in a parade would sit. He leans against one arm behind him for support. The line of cars pulls onto the track and he waves to the fans with his other hand. Friends and competitors follow in cars behind him.
When they reach the finish line, each legend is announced. A.J. leads the way, first as usual, followed by Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Rick Mears, Bobby Unser and several others who were used to being behind A.J.
“A.J. Foyt is in the house!” an announcer yells. A.J.’s cheer is the loudest.
After the loop, A.J. gets on the cart to return to the garage. Gasoline Alley is even more crowded.
“Good luck today, buddy,” a man yells.
“I love you, man,” someone says while slapping A.J. on the shoulder.
As the cart pulls away, a man carrying a red beer cooler sprints after him.
“A.J., A.J., A.J.,” Foyt says in a high-pitched voice mimicking the fans.
Back at the garage, a girl stands outside. “A.J. will you sign my hat?” Exhausted, A.J. cuts a straight path for a chair. “What a mean man,” she says.
Inside, a group of people is waiting for a photo opp. They’ve won a contest to meet A.J.
When they leave, A.J. grabs a frozen ice cream cone and plops into a chair. It’s about an hour before race time, and the shop is quiet. Larry joins A.J. at the table.
Larry asks A.J. how he’s getting to the pits from where he’s dropped off by the cart. “Well, I can walk from there,” he says.
“It’s a long way,” he says. Larry outlines an easier plan. A.J. agrees.
“Wanna go to the pits now?” A.J.’s longtime spokeswoman, Anne Fornoro, asks.
“Not yet,” he says with a smile. “Then I’ve gotta sign autographs.”
Half an hour before race time, Fornoro drops A.J. and Housby off about 50 feet from the pits. They head off in the right direction, but they’re held up. As they weave through the crowds, everyone wants to know how A.J. is doing. They want a picture. They want to shake his hand.
The marching band starts to play and they start announcing the drivers. A.J. and Housby see a clearing and head toward Sato’s pit. As they approach, they notice a concrete barrier about 4 feet tall, much higher than they had expected. A young guy hops over it. The two men consider the climb and look at each other.
“I can’t,” Housby says.
“I’m gonna look embarrassed when I bust my butt,” A.J. says.
They rest against the wall, laughing, and make a plan to go back the way they came to get around the wall. After a few minutes, they sneak by where the drivers are being announced and finally make it to the pits.
They sit side by side on a shorter concrete barrier to listen to the starting prayer and the national anthem. Then A.J. moves to his usual seat at the timing stand. To finish the opening of the 500, the a capella group Straight No Chaser sings the traditional song, “(Back Home Again in) Indiana.” Then the race begins.
“Drivers to your cars!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, please start your engines!”
The cars leave the grid and follow the pace car, warming up their tires. Alex Tagliani’s car stays behind. For this race, Tagliani is racing on A.J.’s team. His car won’t fire. It needs a push start. He finally makes it to the track.
The pace car leads the way for several laps, and then the race restarts.
Once again, one of A.J.’s cars wrecks in the first lap. While passing on the first turn, Sato and Sage Karam touch wheels, Sato’s left front to Karam’s back right, and both cars, as well as that of Ryan Briscoe, end up damaged. Karam didn’t re-enter the race.
Sato comes to the pits for repairs. A.J. stands to look at the car. He sits when Sato returns to the track.
He’s seen it before. He’s seen it all before. There’s nothing that happens at Indy that A.J. hasn’t seen in one of the almost 5,000 competitive laps he’s taken here, more than 60 hours of racing, hours more practicing, and days and weeks and years thinking about it, replaying races run and dreaming of races to come.
He can feel it. The heat of the car. The smell of the engine. Gripping the wheel tightly, forcing it left. Feeling every turn, bump and swerve. The car was an extension of his body, and he could sense when something was off. When the car was draggy. When it felt too loose, as if he could spin out at any turn. When there was a malfunction. How to fix what was wrong. It’s what made him A.J.
He misses it.
Later in the race, in lap 176, Hawksworth spins and sets off a chain reaction wreck that includes two other cars that sends Sebastian Saavedra to the hospital. Hawksworth is unharmed and finishes 27th.
As the 500 miles continue, A.J. is tiring. He drinks a red Gatorade for energy. He pulls on the overhanging awning to steady himself in his seat.
The rest of the race is fairly uneventful for A.J. Foyt Racing, but the last few laps are a frenzy as Will Power, Scott Dixon, Charlie Kimball and Juan Pablo Montoya weave and fight for the lead. In the end, Montoya is victorious.
Even with the wreck, Sato manages to climb to 13th, Tagliani is 17th and Hawksworth places 24th.
After the race, Karam, the young driver who was involved in the wreck with Sato at the beginning, approaches. Housby stands up and says something to him. Karam leans closer and yells in his face, something A.J. might have done back when he was younger and didn’t take crap from anyone. He still doesn’t. He’s pissed. No one is going to talk to Housby like that. As Karam starts to walk away, A.J. yells at him and walks toward him. A few guys from Karam’s pit crew come up beside him.
“Move back,” A.J. says as he prepares to punch the 20-year-old driver. More people come and break up the fight.
A.J. goes back to the garage to cool off. The race didn’t end like he’d hoped, but at least it was over. He’s tired, his limp worse and his walking strained. He pulls two ice cream cones out of the freezer and goes to the motor home.
May 25, 2015Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Day after the Indianapolis 500
On Monday, the sounds of screaming fans and the rumble of engines are replaced by the occasional clinking of empty beer cans rolling under the bleachers. A.J.’s garage is full of people packing the contents of the team into Featherlight trailer hauled by Housby Mack trucks. They’ll be heading up to the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix soon — the race is next weekend.
A.J. arrives at noon with a full belly and a story he wants to tell. He had hoped to eat breakfast at Charlie Brown’s Pancake & Steak House, it was his kind of place, but there was a line out the door. They settled on Einstein Bros. Bagels, but one bite of his sandwich and A.J. was done. “They can keep that shit.” They went back to Charlie Brown’s and the line was still long. Finally, they decided on Steak ‘n Shake. For breakfast, A.J. had a double cheeseburger and a cup of chili.
The story lies in what’s in his hand, and he’s showing it off to everyone. It’s a bolt that he found in his tire. It’s about half an inch across and an inch-and-a-half long. It was perfectly inserted in his tire, but that wasn’t an accident; it wasn’t pointy at the end.
A.J. assumes someone placed it behind his tire on purpose after seeing the “A.J. Foyt” sign in his car window, still there from the police escort yesterday. When he backed out of the parking spot, the bolt must have lodged in the tire. He’s mad he didn’t take the sign out last night.
He limps around the garage showing off the bolt. Everyone has a theory. The atmosphere is casual and relaxed. The crowds are gone, no one is asking for A.J.’s autograph and he doesn’t seem anxious to leave. The mechanics clean parts and haul them to the truck at a leisurely pace. A few of them yawn — it was a long night.
Some of the guys on the team stayed up partying. A.J. stayed up having dinner with Housby and other old friends and later fell asleep watching the Coca-Cola 600 in his hotel room. A.J.’s spokeswoman was up late into the morning writing the team recap for the website, in this case what she calls “making chicken shit into chicken salad.”
A.J. doesn’t blame the drivers for what happened yesterday. Sometimes there were good years, and sometimes there were bad years. They didn’t have any luck on their side this year. He wanted to make sure they knew that.
In the afternoon, A.J. goes to a fan club party for Sato. It’s in the newly opened Foyt Wine Vault located just outside the Speedway. Larry and A.J. Foyt IV, A.J.’s grandson, created the wine bar.
A.J. doesn’t know much about the wine. He thinks they have four or five different kinds, and sometimes he likes to mix the reds and the whites together. But the boys wanted to get into the wine business, and A.J. supported their dream on one condition. “Ours has to be better than Mario Andretti’s damn wine, or I’m gonna kick your butt.” They’ve won some awards in California. A.J. likes it when they win.
When Sato arrives, A.J. calls him over to the bar. They talk about what happened the day before. A.J. wants Sato to know it’s not his fault. A lot of the boys coming up here don’t have the experience, he says. The boy saw him coming up fast and just moved over.
“They’re used to runnin’ them little cars and blockin’.”
Sato shakes his head.
“A lot of these guys when they drop the green flag, they leave their brains in their helmet bag.”
A.J. hangs out at the wine bar for a while and later goes back to the motor home to rest. The Indianapolis 500 was over. He had made it his goal, and it felt good to win that, at least.
In a few days he’ll drive up to the race in Detroit, and after that he’ll fly back to Houston. When he gets home, it will be 362 days until the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. A milestone. He can’t miss that. And he’ll be calling Housby every day, to make sure he’ll be there, too.
Until then, he’ll be busy clearing properties. After all, getting back to his old life means doing the things he has always done, the way he’s always done them.
He’s thinking about buying another piece of land. It’s 25 acres right next to a 200-acre farm he already owns. That way, he’ll have the whole place. Currently, there’s a doublewide trailer on the property.
He thinks he’ll probably set it on fire.
Follow her on Twitter @allisoncvance.
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