Foyt: This Could Be It : Auto racing: At age 55, he is hoping above all else for a record fifth victory in the Indianapolis 500 this year.

A. J. Foyt turned 55 Tuesday and acknowledged that it was about time to call it a career as a race car driver.

“I’ve got a full season ahead, maybe 30 to 35 races, but this could pretty much be it, this year,” he said from Houston, where he celebrated his birthday by working in his racing shop.

“It’s still fun getting behind the wheel and driving, but if all goes well, this could be the last season. It’s hard to convince yourself that you’re not competitive anymore, that you’re not going to win, but maybe it takes a couple of years of getting the hell beat out of you to get the message. I don’t want to lie to myself, but I still have the feeling that I can be competitive.

“I know a lot of folks have said I hung around too long, but I’m having fun, and I don’t have to apologize to anybody for my career.”

And what a career!

Forget that Foyt hasn’t won an Indy car race since the 1981 Pocono 500. Or that he finished only two of 12 races last year and his best was fifth at the Indianapolis 500--his highest finish at the Speedway since 1979, albeit seven laps behind the winner.

Remember this: Foyt is the only driver who has won all three of the most prestigious events in racing--the Indy 500 for open-wheel cars, the Daytona 500 for stock cars and the 24 Hours of LeMans for sports cars. He has won 67 Indy car races, including four Indy 500s and seven national championships, and has won 172 major races in 37 seasons of racing Indy cars, stock cars, sprint cars, sports cars and dirt track cars. Plus winning the International Race of Champions series twice.

Super Tex, a pudgy look-alike of that block of granite who won 10 of 13 Indy car races in 1964, will begin his fifth decade of racing Feb. 4 in the Copper World Classic stock car race at Phoenix International Raceway. Foyt will drive a 1990 Chevy Camaro with a 358 cubic-inch engine that he owns, but is “borrowing” from Jerry Schild, who is Foyt’s short-track driver in races around Houston.

Foyt turned down a ride in the 24 Hours of Daytona, which he has won twice, to drive at Phoenix.

“I’ll drive the Camaro just this one time because I promised Denny (Phoenix promoter Dennis Wood), and I’ve always been the type of guy who sticks with my first decision. Besides, I had fun out here last year and have always found Phoenix a good track for me.”

Foyt won the first race on the one-mile track at Phoenix, a 100-mile Indy car race in 1964. The Copper race will be his 33rd there.

“This ain’t going to be any big deal, just a fun deal,” he said. “Jerry’s a local guy that I sponsor around Houston, and I told him it was my turn to drive this time. We’re bringing our amateur crew out there, not the NASCAR bunch--just the guys who help Jerry all year.

“Last year I had the most fun I’d had in many years. If I run good, like I did last year (he finished third), I’ll get the season off to a good start and get the adrenaline running a little.

“After that, I’ll do the full champ car (Foyt can’t bring himself to call it the CART series) and maybe six or eight Winston Cup races with the NASCAR boys, starting with Daytona (Feb. 18),” he said. “Then maybe a few races here and there with guys like Rusty Wallace on itty-bitty tracks. That’s what’s fun. That’s driving the way it was when I started out. I did some last year and it kind of thrilled me, beating Rusty one night. He’s a real hotdog.”

PET PEEVES

Foyt is not pleased with the CART/PPG schedule and, as racing’s elder statesman--he is three years older than stock car driver Richard Petty and five older than PPG/CART competitor Mario Andretti--he is not reluctant to air his pet peeve, or peeves.

No. 1 is the proliferation of road racing on the Indy car schedule. Worst of all, in his mind, are the street races. This year there will be 11 road or street races and only five on ovals.

“When CART was formed, the idea was to have it 50-50 between ovals and road, but now there’s less and less ovals,” Foyt said. “It got easier and cheaper to set up a race in the streets, so that’s the way they’re going. There’s no year-round upkeep like there is on a permanent track.”

Two new races this year, at Denver and Vancouver, Canada, will be over downtown streets.

“Street races are terrible,” Foyt said. “They’re no good for the drivers, for the spectators and one of these days, they’re liable to finish off the promoters, too.

“I like a good mile track, like Phoenix, or a high-banked superspeedway where you can see the cars all the way around. If one guy gets passed, or gets in trouble, you know where it happened and how it happened.

“I like good road courses, too, like Riverside used to be, where you could see a lot of the track. On a street course, a guy comes around the corner one time and doesn’t show up the next and you haven’t the slightest idea why.

“Street courses are more like brake contests. It’s who can get in the corners the farthest and stop the quickest. It’s more like bumper cars. I don’t think you could find one real racer who would tell you truthfully that they really enjoy it.

“What I’m worried most about, though, is what’s going to happen when a car gets loose in the crowd at a street race. These days, a lot of (city) parks are getting closed down because kids get hurt on swings or teeter-totters, so can you imagine what would happen if a race car killed spectators.”

LOOKING TO INDY

Foyt’s main goal, as it has been since he won his fourth Indy 500 in 1977, is to win a fifth one. That would break him out of a tie with Al Unser for most Indy victories.

“I want to get that fifth one more since my good buddy Al tied me (in 1987),” he said. “If anyone had to tie me, I’m glad it was Al. I gave him his first ride at Indy in ’65 and he’s one of my best friends in racing.”

Unser will drive an Alfa Romeo-powered March for Pat Patrick in this year’s 500.

One record Foyt is certain will never be broken is qualifying for and driving in 32 consecutive Indy 500s.

“I expect to make it 33 this year, and I can’t believe it myself that I did it,” he said. “I’ve been hurt, like ’65 when I crashed at Riverside and doctors said I’d never race again, and a month later I was back on the pole at Indy. And there’s been years when the car wasn’t running real good, but I got in the field. I don’t think anyone will ever live to break that record.”

The next highest number of starts is 24, by Andretti, Al Unser and Johnny Rutherford, but none has done it consecutively.

Foyt may have the best chance he’s had in years at Indy if he gets a Chevy Ilmor engine for his Lola chassis. He will be in Detroit where Chevrolet has called a press conference for today at which it will probably be announced that Foyt will join the select few who will have Chevies.

Chevrolet-powered cars ran 1-2-4 at Indy last year, with Foyt the first Cosworth-powered car to finish. Chevy power also won 13 of the 15 races last season.

What he needs most, Foyt acknowledged, that is the fire and zeal he had 10 or more years ago.

“You ask if I still have the drive I once had, and I’d say ‘yes and no,’ ” he said.

“Yes, I do, when I approach a race and get pumped up. I want to be competitive at all times, and if I ever felt I couldn’t do the job, I’d quit right there. I know I’ve been getting my butt kicked, but I still feel I can gather myself and my team together and win again.

“I’d have to say, no, I don’t, when I know that a few years back I’d had that feeling all the time, come hell or high water. I tend to be lazy now. I’ll let things slide at times, something I’d never done before. I remember when I was on top of everything, I mean every last little detail.

“I’ve worked hard getting ready for this season. You might see a big difference in the operation. I hope so, but even I have to admit it, I’m getting up there in numbers.”

Fifty-five, to be exact.