Auto Racing: I’ll Take Horsepower

AUTO RACING

There is almost no limit to the lengths a man will go for pride. Take Texas’ A. J. (for Anthony Joseph) Foyt.

There he was, at Florida’s Daytona International Speedway—in a sports car, of all things.

Fast cars are nothing new to Foyt: he practically cut his teeth on a camshaft. The son of a Houston garage owner, A. J. won his first auto race at the age of four—in a scaled-down midget with a one-cylinder engine and a top speed of 18 m.p.h. He quit school at 17 to turn pro, fought his way up from the dirt tracks of the Southwest to the big time and the big money at Milwaukee and Trenton and Indianapolis. In 1960 he won his first (of three) U.S. Auto Club championships; a year later he won the Indy 500. Now 29, Foyt is a $100,000-a-year man, the king of the oval tracks and the “big cars”—the burly Offenhauser roadsters that have only two gears (low and high), turn only to the left, burn a gallon of exotic fuel every four miles.

But sports-car racing, with its twisting courses, its slower speeds, its constant braking and shifting (up to 300 times on one circuit), is not supposed to be his cup of methanol. Going into the 250-mile American Challenge Cup race at Daytona two Saturdays ago, Foyt had driven a sports car only six times in his life.

More Time to Think. Foyt, however, had a little score to settle. Last year a couple of sports-car types named Jimmy Clark and Dan Gurney invaded Indianapolis, gave big-car racers a driving lesson by running circles around the Offies in their tiny British-built Lotuses. Now Foyt was out to return the favor—by beating the sports-car boys at their own silly game. “Sports cars are easy to drive,” he sneered. “You get more time to think. Sure, you have to study the course, and you have to downshift, and you have to learn how to brake. But I’ve always liked shifting gears.” The 37-car field included everything from Falcons and Corvettes to a pair of hot new Porsches. But from the moment the time trials started, it was strictly a two-car race. Clark was not there, but Gurney was—in a bright red Lotus 19 with a 375-h.p. Ford Fairlane engine. Foyt’s car was an older, rear-engined Scarab (formerly owned by Millionaire Playboy Lance Reventlow), outfitted with a 430-h.p. Chevrolet power plant. “Horsepower,” Foyt grunted.

“That’s what it takes to win”—and in practice he clocked a record 113 m.p.h.

Gurney wryly picked up the gauntlet by ripping off a 115 m.p.h. lap. Nobody else came close.

Out of Gas. The starter’s flag had barely fluttered when the duel began.

The 3.81-mile course was part road, part track; in the infield, it snaked through a series of sharp hairpin turns; then it swept onto Daytona’s ultrafast, banked stock-car oval. In the lighter, more maneuverable Lotus, Gurney picked up valuable seconds on the turns; Foyt got the seconds back by blasting around the oval flat-out at nearly 185 m.p.h. By the 20th lap, both had lapped the entire field. But neither one could shake the other. Sixteen times in the first 38 laps the lead changed hands, while both drivers nursed their cars carefully, hoping for a break that would put them in front to stay. On the 38th lap, it came: Gurney had to stop for gas. The gas tank of his Lotus held only 40 gal. v. 50 for the Scarab. In the pit, the Lotus’s starter froze, and by the time Gurney got back on the track, Foyt was a full lap ahead. Desperately, he tried to close the gap, but the strain was too much: on the 42nd lap, the Lotus was out for good with a broken gearbox.

Foyt coasted to victory. “It got pretty lonely out there after Gurney left,” he chuckled, posing for photographers with Miss Universe. “But I would have won anyway.” Gurney was not so sure: “This issue between us is not at all settled.” Other sports-car drivers groused that Foyt won only because he had the fastest car. “That gearbox alone cost a few thousand dollars,” said one, “and those Weber carburetors are the best there is.” Said another: “I’d like to see him in a lesser car before I made up my mind how good he is.” But Foyt, of course, got in the last word. Pocketing his $5,500 winner’s check, he snarled: “Heck, we’re all in this for the money. They can buy the same stuff for their cars that I buy for mine. These sports-car boys figure that a little bitty car with a little bitty engine can win the big ones. Not me. I’ll take horsepower.”