A. J. Foyt: The Four-Time Indianapolis 500 Winner Who Also Conquered Le Mans

A. J. Foyt is an American former racing driver who competed in open-wheel, stock car and sports car racing. He was the first driver to win the Indianapolis 500 four times, and he holds the record for most American National Championship titles, with seven. He is also the only driver to have won Le Mans and the Indianapolis 500 in the same year.

How did Foyt start racing?

Foyt was born in Houston, Texas, to a father who was a mechanic and raced midget cars as a hobby. His father gave him a toy racer with a lawnmower engine at the age of three, and his first victory came at five, when he challenged a local midget champion to a match race and won. He was racing midget cars himself from the age of seventeen.

His childhood was eventful. At eleven he did considerable damage to the family's other race car by driving it around the yard, causing the engine to catch fire. His father, though angry, accepted that his son had a future as a driver. Foyt later dropped out of high school to work as a mechanic and concentrate on racing.

After obtaining a driver's licence he bought a used Ford and practised the mechanical skills he had learned on his father's cars. He took part in street races until the police turned him in to his parents, a sign of how early his appetite for competition developed.

Four Indianapolis 500 wins, a Le Mans victory in his only attempt, and a career that spanned midgets, sprints, stock cars and team ownership.

How did Foyt's midget and sprint car career develop?

Foyt began his sprint car career in 1956, at 21, driving the Les Vaughn Offy with the International Motor Contest Association. He won his first sprint race at the Red River Fair in Fargo, North Dakota, and switched to USAC later in 1957. He went on to win 28 USAC National sprint car features and the USAC Eastern Championship in 1960.

The Turkey Night Grand Prix fell to him in 1960 and again in 1961, when the race had just moved to Ascot Park in Gardena, California. He also took the 1961 Hut Hundred from a last-place start, and he later took the Astro Grand Prix inside the Houston Astrodome in 1970. He finished his midget career with twenty feature wins.

Foyt also won the Australian Speedcar Grand Prix in 1975 and 1976 at the Liverpool International Speedway in Sydney. Those wins showed how far his reach extended, and they came long after he had established himself as a top driver in the United States.

How did Foyt win the Indianapolis 500 four times?

Foyt won the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, 1964, 1967 and 1977, the first driver to do so. In 1961 he was the first driver to retain the points title and also win the 500, and he is the only driver to win the race in both front-engined and rear-engined cars.

The 1961 race was close. A refuelling malfunction left Foyt short of fuel, and Eddie Sachs, unaware of the problem, pushed hard to keep up and had to pit for a tyre. Foyt pitted again for fuel and resumed the lead, then beat Sachs by 8.28 seconds, the second-closest finish to that point.

The 1964 race is remembered for a fiery second-lap crash that killed Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs. Foyt had stayed with his Offenhauser-engined roadster, although Ford had hoped to sign him for a Lotus. That year he won a record ten of fourteen races and the championship, and he added a second Indianapolis 500 win.

The 1967 race ended with Foyt inheriting the lead when Parnelli Jones's turbocar expired with three laps remaining. He slowed as he approached a spin ahead, threaded through a five-car accident on the front straight and took the checkered flag. In 1977 he ran out of fuel, made up around 32 seconds on Gordon Johncock and passed him for the win.

Did Foyt win Le Mans and the Daytona 500?

Yes. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1967 in a Ford GT40 Mk IV, sharing the car with Dan Gurney for Carroll Shelby's entry. He also won the Daytona 500 in 1972, and he and Mario Andretti are the only drivers to have won both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500.

At Le Mans he had only ten laps of practice and had annoyed local fans by describing the tree-lined course as little more than a country road. Gurney overslept and missed a handover in the small hours, so Foyt doubled up and drove close to 18 hours of the race.

In 1985 Foyt won the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Daytona in a Porsche. He is one of twelve drivers to complete the Triple Crown of endurance racing, which combines Sebring, Daytona and Le Mans.

How did Foyt's NASCAR career go?

Foyt won seven NASCAR races. His first came at the 1964 Firecracker 400 at Daytona International Speedway, where he swapped the lead with Bobby Isaac over the final fifty laps and passed him on the final lap. He needed only ten races to win, after eight professional seasons in other categories.

In January 1965 at Riverside his brakes failed on the mile-long back straight, and his car launched off an embankment and tumbled several times. The track doctor pronounced him dead at the scene, but Parnelli Jones revived him. The crash left Foyt with chest injuries, a broken back and a cracked ankle.

In 1988 he was banned from NASCAR for six months and fined $5000 after a series of incidents at Talladega. The suspension was later lifted, though the fine rose to $7500. His final NASCAR Winston Cup race was the 1994 Brickyard 400, where he finished 30th.

How did Foyt build a team after driving?

Foyt's team, Gilmore-Foyt Racing, built its own Coyote chassis from 1966 to 1983. After retiring as a driver he owned A. J. Foyt Enterprises, which fielded teams in NASCAR and CART. He joined the Indy Racing League in 1996, when few CART owners did so.

Scott Sharp took the 1996 Indy Racing League title in a Foyt car, and Kenny Brack won the 1998 title before taking the 1999 Indianapolis 500 for the team. In 1997 a scoring error at a Texas race handed Billy Boat the win, and when Arie Luyendyk challenged the result, Foyt shoved him into a flower bed. USAC later reversed the result in Luyendyk's favour, but Foyt kept the trophy.

His closed-course speed record stands at 257.123 mph (413.799 km/h), set in 1987 in an Oldsmobile Aerotech on a test track near Fort Stockton, Texas. The Indy Racing League also created the A. J. Foyt Oval Championship in his honour, which ran from 2010 to 2012.

How did Foyt's Indianapolis 500 debut go?

Foyt made his Indianapolis 500 debut in 1958, but he spun out on lap 148. He had raced in each season from 1957 to 1992, and that same year he took part in the Trophy of the Two Worlds at Monza.

He was the last living driver to have started in the Races of Two Worlds at Monza in 1958, a distinction that reflects how long his career stretched. His early Indianapolis years were a building phase before he became one of the speedway's regular contenders.

How many championship car wins did Foyt take at Trenton?

Twelve of his 67 Championship Car victories came at Trenton, which made it one of his most productive venues. Across his career he started 374 championship car races and finished in the top ten 201 times. Those numbers illustrate how consistently he ran at the front across three decades.

He never won a CART event, which stands in contrast with his success as an owner in the Indy Racing League. His Championship Car record covered an unusually long span, through the 1992 season.

How did Foyt's stock car and IROC results compare?

Foyt won the USAC Stock Car championship in 1968, 1978 and 1979. He also won the International Race of Champions in 1976 and 1977, a series that uses identical cars to test drivers across different categories.

Those titles show his range. Foyt raced stock cars in NASCAR and USAC alongside his open-wheel work, which gave him a rare breadth of experience in American motorsport.

What happened at Indianapolis in 1982?

In 1982 Foyt started on the front row at Indianapolis, but he became involved in a controversial wreck when Kevin Cogan spun out. After repairs during the red flag, he led early on but retired the car because of lingering damage from the crash.

He shouted on live television that he did not know what had happened, then named Cogan when pressed. The episode showed the intensity that marked his racing.

How did Foyt's final NASCAR seasons go?

Foyt failed to qualify for Winston Cup races in 1995 and 1996. He raced three times in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and his best result came in 1995, when he qualified ninth for the GM Goodwrench/Delco Battery 200.

What does the Triple Crown of endurance racing involve?

The Triple Crown of endurance racing combines the 12 Hours of Sebring, the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Foyt is among a select group of drivers to have completed it, which places him alongside the endurance specialists of his era.

In 1985 he won at Sebring and at Daytona in a Porsche, taking two legs of the Triple Crown in a single season.

What happened in the 1971 and 1972 Daytona 500 races?

Foyt ran out of gas near the end of the 1971 Daytona 500, and Richard Petty passed him for the win. A year later Foyt won the race itself. Those two results show how close the race could be for drivers on the same track in consecutive years.

One of his last NASCAR victories came in the first of Daytona's qualifying heats in 1978, driving a self-fielded superspeedway Buick. It was his final NASCAR win.