Foyt Hurt in Crash in Wisconsin : Motor racing: He is treated for a broken left knee, broken left heel and dislocated right foot.

A.J. Foyt, the winningest driver in Indy-car racing, was badly injured Sunday when his car went off the rolling four-mile, 11-turn Road America course on the 24th lap of the Texaco-Havoline 200.

Foyt’s condition was upgraded from serious to satisfactory after he entered the trauma unit at Milwaukee General Hospital, where he was treated for a broken left knee, broken left heel and dislocated right foot by Dr. Terry Trammell, Director of Medical Services for CART.

Foyt’s accident occurred on his 24th lap of the 50-lap, 200-mile race when his Lola-Chevrolet was racing in 14th place alongside Dominic Dobson as they approached the end of the straightaway.

Suddenly, Foyt went off the track before entering the first turn, drove over a shoulder and into a grassy depression. The accident crushed the front of the car in on Foyt, 55, and, after a small grass fire was extinguished, CART safety workers took more than 15 minutes to cut him loose.

After being stabilized at the scene, he was transported by helicopter to the hospital, about 60 miles away.

“His vital signs are stable and have been stable throughout the entire episode,” said Dr. Steve Olvey, director of medical affairs for CART. “He’s awake and alert and talking.”

Eddie Thraap, publicist for the Foyt racing team, said from the hospital that Foyt likely will be in the facility for a day or two before being transported to Indianapolis for further care.

“He told me ‘I’ll be back,’ ” Thraap said while answering questions about Foyt’s future in racing.

The reason for the crash was not immediately known, but Dobson said: “It looks like to me he lost some brakes. We were side by side. I was on the inside, and he was on the outside. I braked at my normal point, but he kept going straight.

“I saw some smoke, so he might have locked up the front (brakes). I saw him go over the side. At that point, it looks like you’re at the end of the universe. The next time by, I noticed some skid marks.”

“He told me he elected to hit the fence (at the end of the straightaway) because ‘if we had gone into the corner, we would have gone upside-down,’ ” Thraap said.

The race was red-flagged on lap 33 to remove Foyt from the track, and cars were off the course for nearly 90 minutes. When they returned, pole-sitter Danny Sullivan was leading, but Michael Andretti inherited that top spot six laps later when Sullivan’s gearbox broke. Andretti held off Emerson Fittipaldi to win by 2.04 seconds, with Rick Mears finishing third.

Andretti’s victory was his second in a row and fifth of the season. He won $76,054 for averaging 106.192 m.p.h., but his victory celebration was muted.

“I hope to God he’ll be all right,” Andretti said of Foyt. “He’s a legend and I’m sorry something like this has happened to him.”

Foyt leads all Indy-car drivers with 67 victories, the last of which came in 1981 at the Pocono 500. He has been badly injured several times, including a crash in the inaugural Michigan 500, in 1981, in which he broke his right arm, and a stock car crash last year at Charlotte, N.C., in which he suffered a serious concussion.

He also has broken his back twice, broken his feet, cracked ribs and suffered burns, but each time has returned to a racing career that began in 1957 and includes seven Indy-car championships and four Indianapolis 500 victories.