Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt | A transcript of Thursday's conversations

DAVID POOLE

The Charlotte Observer

Thursday, Jul. 05, 2007

Many of the men who have won the Daytona 500 in their careers gathered Thursday at Daytona International Speedway as the track continues to prepare for the 50th running of that race in February.

At one point during this extraordinary gathering of motorsports legends, Observer motorsports reporter David Poole found himself among a handful of reporters standing between Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt as they discussed a number of topics.

Here are highlights of that memorable conversation, which began with Andretti talking about his 1967 Daytona 500 victory:

MARIO ANDRETTI: Ford was very good to me in those days. We had their engines in the Champ cars and I was part of their Le Mans program. I was driving for the Holman and Moody team in the Le Mans program.

They put me in a stock car and I thought it would be really good because of the experience I’d had in the stock car before that at Daytona was with Smokey Yunick, and he was experimenting a lot of his ideas with me on the set-up and, Jesus Christ, I thought I was on a pogo stick out of those banks.

I drove the way the car needed to be driven. I was stuck with the spoiler I qualified with. I had no choice. I had no speed by comparison and I couldn’t ask anybody, even my teammate would lie about the revs they were pulling. In those days you didn’t have a computer.

...It’s not that I fell into that race. I led in the beginning, in the middle and at the end. But I had to lead. (At this point, Andretti picks up two of the digital tape recorders in front of him and starts using them as visual aids as he explains his points.)

The big difference was when you’re running the banks now you can stay up here like this. In those days, you didn’t have the downforce you now have on the fronts of the cars. Aerodynamically they were a disaster because they all kept the original shape.

The bottom line is, when you were in dirty air you had to stay low. It was the only way to do it. If you ran up high, you’d push out of line and you’d also take the other guy with you.

The way my car was, it was a little on the loose side. By doing this (Andretti lines one recorder up behind the other, with the one indicating his car tucked in a half-lane lower than one in front of him) my car was perfect from the middle of the corner on.

To be honest with you Freddy (Holman-Moody teammate Fred Lorenzen, who finished second) couldn’t even draft with me at the end. I was driving that son of a bitch so hard and he tried but he couldn’t draft me.

I broke away from him. We were lapping Tiny Lund and Tiny motioned me and moved over. I did this (Andretti demonstrates how he dove low to go around Lund on the low side, instead of the high side as Lorenzen expected) and Freddy just backed off.

He didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I almost went into the grass and I came out the other side and Freddy was this big. He could never catch up to me.

I pulled away from him. I couldn’t believe it. If he had been right on my bumper at the end, it would have been all over. He would have gone by me, just for that lap.

Q: How were you viewed when you came here to race in those days?

ANDRETTI: I think there was a mutual respect. I didn’t just come out of the woodwork. I had some racing and already had a championship under my belt.

I had some respect and I appreciated it. I didn’t know what to expect to be honest with you, but I made a lot of friends and I have friendships that are strong today. I had no reason to doubt it would be any different, but you never know.

I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t care where I go, whether it’s Formula One or NASCAR, to me it feels like home no matter where I go. You see people you’ve raced and you’ve worked with.

Q: Has racing become too specialized today, or was the evolution inevitable?

ANDRETTI: It was inevitable. The sport is much more commercialized and there’s a strength in that. But it puts much more stock into commitments and potential conflicts of interest. It’s tough to satisfy all of that. It’s good in one and it creates a problem in another way.

(At this point, A.J. Foyt walks up to the table and addresses Andretti.)

A.J. FOYT: They said they were going to give us a lifetime membership (in the Daytona 500 club) and I said, “Hey, our lives are almost over with.”

ANDRETTI: Mabye they could give us some back pay. Retroactive benefits about 25 or 30 years.

FOYT: It’s like the other day, a guy came up to me and said, “How do you feel?” I said, “I said, not too damn good.” He said, “What do you mean by that?” I said, “Just like I said, I’m always hurting.”

He said, “Well, you’re still looking down at the grass and not up at it.” I thought he had a good point.

Q: That sounds like something Bill France Jr. used to say.

FOYT: I visited with him when we were down here testing the Indy cars. ...He was a fighter, I will tell you that. He lasted three or four years longer than anybody thought he would. His daddy was the same way. Let’s face it, they did a hell of a job.

Q: There were people who thought Bill Jr. would never be able to get the job done the way his dad did, and now some people think the same thing about Brian France.

FOYT: All joking aside, it’s just like my kids and Mario’s kids. They don’t realize what you do. You had it rough.

At the same time, you try to make it easier on them and hope it gets easier and easier and then you wonder how far they can go. ...You always try to make your part easier.

ANDRETTI: He cultivated something that was already ... the skids were already all greased. You have to make sure it doesn’t go off the skids, which is easy to do, too. You maintain the course and cultivate what’s good.

FOYT: Brian’s done a good job. It’s just like the point system he came up with. Now, people have caught on to it and I think people are liking it. Some of the big sponsors didn’t like it when their guys had to watch the race for the championship. But I think people are looking at it.

ANDRETTI: It has a lot more talk value, that's for sure.

Q: You two might be the most qualified people in the world to talk about the state of open-wheel racing in this country. If you’re a race fan, you go “Dang, can’t somebody just fix that?”

ANDRETTI: No joke. It’s insane.

FOYT: I went to the U.S. Auto Club before CART was formed. We had just come back from over in England. I had a horse running in Arkansas in a stakes race and I couldn’t come to the meeting. I went to USAC and said, “I am telling you there’s going to be another association formed.”

All they wanted was one person on the board of directors. I begged them. Please. They said, “What’s going happen is going to happen.” That’s what started CART.

It’d be like way back if NASCAR split in two, it kills both sides. I doesn’t help anybody.

Who’s going to survive? The reason I went with IRL more than anything was because of the Indianapolis 500. It has never recovered.

Q: And that opened a door that NASCAR walked right through.

ANDRETTI: They were smart and took advantage, they went to the Brickyard and everything else.

But after 12 years of this, you have two guys up there who both have some staying power. When you talk to (Kelvin) Kalhoven (of the ChampCar World Series) and Tony (George of the IndyCar Series), they both agree that’s what needs to be done. But on the selfish side, neither will be satisfied on what they think they’ll have to give up.

It would be better if they came together instead of one side just suppressing and killing the other. If you kill the other, you still have the feelings and emotions and they’re negative. If both sides could come together, you create a win-win situation for everybody and you go on.

You’d have an alternative. It wouldn’t hurt NASCAR. The guys who can make this decision have to look at the big picture. There are careers at stake. It’s my kids, it’s A.J.’s kids.

No matter if you win over there, it’s like there’s an asterisk on the win. “Wonder if it would have been the same if they were all together?”

Also, there’s the earning power. As a driver, you can hardly make a living if you’re a champion over there. I used to make in 1970s more money than these guys who are champions make over there. That’s pathetic. I could kick both of their butts.

FOYT: People have got egos.

ANDRETTI: That’s all it is, A.J.

FOYT: And the bad thing is they have both sides so far apart on the equipment that today there’s just no way to bring the IRL to ChampCar or ChampCar to the IRL. It would be like starting today with the car of tomorrow and you’d have to throw everything away, instead of easing into it.

ANDRETTI: I think there’s a compromise. Keep the IRL cars for the oval tracks and the other cars for the road races. Figure out what you could with the teams.

There would be some sucking up to do, but that’s what needs to be done. There needs to be give and take and it wouldn’t be perfect at the start. But as you get going, you start getting some sponsors and go from there.

You don’t throw one away, combine the two and a couple of years down the road you have one overall car. I think it could be blended in.

There are teams in the IRL who could make some chassis available on the other side, work out a deal. Like I said, it might take a little sucking up at the beginning. But I know it can happen.

FOYT: They’re not looking at tomorrow, they’re looking at today.

Q: A.J., who’s the best race car driver in the world today?

FOYT: Andretti.

ANDRETTI: Right there, Foyt.

FOYT: I don’t know. It’s really hard to pick one. You have so many young kids coming up. Even in my day and Mario’s day they’d say he was the best or I was. I was just glad to be named amongst them. I don’t think I was any better ever than him or he than me.

Mario was an outlaw down here like I was.

ANDRETTI: But as least we got to draw.

Q: What do you think of Juan Pablo Montoya?

FOYT: I think he’s a hell of a race driver myself. He don’t give a crap about nothing. He just a good race driver. I like the way he acts.

ANDRETTI: I do, too.

FOYT: He just says it like it is.

Q: Jeff Gordon is at the next table and he just looked up and said, “Man, that’s when race car drivers were race car drivers.” Could he run with you guys?

FOYT: I think he could have

ANDRETTI: No friggin’ way!

FOYT (to Gordon): Jeff, come over here and protect me.

JEFF GORDON: I think I’d need protecting over there.

FOYT: I said you could and Mario said, “No way.” He jumped on me.

GORDON: You guys would be pretty tough to hang with – off the track is what I am worried about.

ANDRETTI: Not with him.

FOYT: No, shut up! That’s why my wife never liked racing. My lake house got 8 feet of water in the bottom floor and I said, “I would like to have some of those old trophies.” She said, “Let the damn things float.”

Q: Back to the open wheel thing a minute, which side will blink first?

ANDRETTI: It’s not a matter of playing chicken. It’s a matter of just being reasonable and seeing the advantage it would give everybody. Everyone would be a winner if this happens, and I hope I live to see that day.

FOYT: Live to see what? I am going to tell you what George Snider told me the other day. He said, “Boss, that danged yardstick is getting shorter.”

Q: Wouldn’t a strong open-wheel series make NASCAR step up.

ANDRETTI: There’s enough for everybody out there. You’d expand the fan base and that works for everybody. I love to see what NASCAR has done because it’s motor racing, and when motor racing is popular it’s good for everybody.

It has been my life and it has been his life. There’s no such thing as us and them, it’s all of us. If open wheel would do the right thing it would cultivate more fans. It’s not going to take away from NASCAR. It’s all going to be to the good of motor racing.