This is the single greatest honor in the motor vehicle industry, intended to honor a career and/or lifetime achievement. To become a "Hall of Famer" the nominee must be either retired or deceased. Recipients must have significantly impacted the development of the automobile or the motor vehicle industry. Typically, four to eight individuals are inducted each year.
Never before – and never again – will one person be so closely associated with one race: A.J. Foyt and the Indianapolis 500.
A.J. Foyt has competed in an amazing 50 consecutive Indy 500 races, 35 as a driver. Behind the wheel, Foyt was the first person to win four Indy 500 races, in 1961, ’64, ’67 and ‘77. As a team owner, he’d win once more in 1999. Of the 16 Indy 500 races he completed without incident, he finished in the top three an incredible nine times. If Foyt could finish the Indy 500, he had a better than 50% chance of winning it.
A.J. Foyt was born in 1935 in a poor section of Houston, the son of an auto mechanic. A.J.’s father, Anthony Joseph, Senior, loved racing and would serve as the inspirational spark for the younger Foyt’s racing passion. The elder Foyt built midget racecars, and encouraged his son to race. Foyt grew up helping his father work on the racecars, all the while listening to the stories of the old timers. As A.J. grew he was completely consumed by racing. He dropped out of high school just months before graduation so that he could get a jumpstart on his professional racing career, which began in 1953 at the age of 18.
Over the next several years, he would travel around Texas and the South, competing in races with very little success. He would sleep in his car and wash up at service stations to save money. The young Foyt hit bottom in early 1957, when, while racing in Florida, he was so broke, he had to have his parents wire him money just to get home.
But Foyt’s talents didn’t go unnoticed. Later that same year, he landed a position with a well-funded team, and competed in his first Indy-car race in Springfield, Illinois.
The very next year, 1958, Foyt’s childhood dream came true, when he competed in his first Indianapolis 500 race, finishing 16th after spinning out on the 148th lap due to a broken water hose, 52 laps shy of completing the race. Incredibly, just three years later, in 1961, and at the age of 26, A.J. Foyt won his first Indy 500 title. Most drivers never win the elusive Indy 500 in a lifetime, yet Foyt would go on to win it three more times, at the ages of 29, 32 and 42.
Just two weeks after his 1967 Indy 500 win, Foyt would partner with legendary driver Dan Gurney to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, setting a record in the process. Not only was it the first time an all-American team would win the grueling race, it was the first time an Indy 500 winner would do it. And in the process, the win demonstrated to the world the racing versatility of A.J. Foyt.
To this day, and forever more, the name A.J. Foyt will be known as one of the greatest drivers of all time: Four Indy 500 wins; most Indy series victories at 67, most national championships at 7; most wins in one season at 10, and the only driver to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, and the 24 Hours of LeMans.
