Few racing drivers have as long and successful a career as A.J. Foyt, which is why even though the first volume of the Texan’s biography came in at a shelf-straining 656 pages, there’s a second volume on the way. Publisher Octane Press is taking pre-orders for the book ahead of its July publication, so you have a couple of months to get through the first volume if you haven’t already.
Anthony Joseph Foyt is best known as the first person to win the Indianapolis 500 four times, founding a club that includes just three other members—and nobody has won the 500 more than four times. Foyt is also the only driver to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 1987, he set a closed-course speed record of 257.123 mph in an Oldsmobile Aerotech that still stands today.
In this second volume, author Art Garner focuses on Foyt’s life and career from 1978 on. That’s the year after Foyt won his last Indy 500, but Foyt still drove competitively into the early 1990s. At age 58, he entered the 1993 Indy 500 but chose to retire on the spot after Robby Gordon, driving a Foyt-owned car, crashed during a practice session. But he came back to Indy for NASCAR’s 1994 Brickyard 400, and tried (but failed) to qualify for that race the following two years.
Fernando Alonso continuing to race in Formula 1 at age 44 (but not necessarily enjoying it) seems like a big deal today, but Foyt’s career is a reminder that such longevity was somewhat more common in the past, assuming drivers could survive in an era before today’s vastly improved safety measures.
Given the length of Foyt’s time in racing—his career in what we would today call IndyCar lasted 35 years—it’s no wonder that Garner needed a second volume to tell the full story. Part two should also provide some insight into Foyt’s life after the wins stopped coming so easily, when he made the shift from driver to team owner. If it’s as long as volume one, it should be perfect for a long plane ride, too.
The book will retail for $46.95, but it’s currently available for $39.95 if you pre-order it from the publisher. Even the regular price is still in line with current hardcover prices, which have crept up recently. In a previous era, a two-volume biography of a famous racing driver would have likely been a smaller-batch project that would have been harder to find and even more expensive, but thankfully, motorsports books are getting more numerous and more mainstream.
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