Midget car career Foyt raced
midget cars from the age of seventeen, driving for a low-budget owner after his father refused to let A.J. use his car. He took part in the 1956
Night Before the 500 at West 16th Street Speedway, located across the street from the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His first midget car win was at
Kansas City in 1957, and he finished seventh for the season. He no longer raced midget cars full-time after 1957 Foyt reportedly got only ten laps of practice, but when Gurney overslept and missed a driver change in the middle of the night, Foyt was forced to double-stint and wound up driving nearly 18 hours of the 24. Foyt won the
12 Hours of Sebring and
24 Hours of Daytona in 1985 in a
Porsche.
Stock car career USAC Stock Car Foyt was the champion in USAC's stock car in 1968, 1978, and 1979. He finished second in 1963 and 1969, and third in 1970.
NASCAR Foyt, a veteran who had been racing professionally for eight seasons before trying his hand at
NASCAR, only needed ten races to get his first victory.
Richard Petty dominated the
1964 Firecracker 400 until dropping out with engine problems. Foyt swapped the lead with
Bobby Isaac for the final fifty laps of the summer event at the
Daytona International Speedway. Foyt passed Isaac on the final lap to win the race. In January 1965, Foyt qualified and ran in the front of the pack most of the day with
Dan Gurney and
Parnelli Jones in the
Motor Trend 500 at
Riverside International Raceway. Jones retired with mechanical issues, leaving Gurney and Foyt contesting the lead until Foyt spun late in the race. After running hard to catch up with Gurney, Foyt's brakes failed at the end of Riverside's mile-long, downhill back straight. Foyt went into the infield at speed, launched off an embankment, dropped into a lower area, and slammed into a second embankment, tumbling end-over-end several times. The track doctor pronounced Foyt dead at the scene, but Jones revived him. Foyt suffered severe chest injuries, a broken back, and a fractured ankle. Footage of this is featured in the final scene of
Red Line 7000. Foyt ran out of gas near the end of the
1971 Daytona 500, and Petty passed him for the win. Foyt won the
1972 Daytona 500, and in 1979, Foyt finished third. Foyt won the 1971 and 1972 races at the
Ontario Motor Speedway for
Wood Brothers Racing. His final win in NASCAR was in the first of
Daytona's 125-mile qualifying heats in 1978, driving a self-fielded superspeedway Buick. In 1988, Foyt was banned from NASCAR for six months and fined $5000 following a series of incidents during the
Winston 500 at
Talladega Superspeedway. Later, the suspension was lifted, though the fine increased to $7500. Foyt's final NASCAR Winston Cup Series race was the 1994 Brickyard 400. Foyt finished 30th. Foyt failed to qualify in 1995 and 1996. Foyt raced three times in the NASCAR
Craftsman Truck Series, with a best finish of 18th in the 1995 GM Goodwrench/Delco Battery 200, in which he qualified ninth.
Smokey Yunick wrote in his autobiography that, "A.J. Foyt, I think, was the greatest race driver there ever has been in U.S. racing history so far...A.J. Foyt could beat your ass in anything that had a motor and wheels." ==Career summary==