{"id":79525,"date":"2021-05-12T15:11:01","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T22:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=79525"},"modified":"2021-05-12T15:11:01","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T22:11:01","slug":"foyts-secret-weapons-for-the-indy-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/foyts-secret-weapons-for-the-indy-500\/","title":{"rendered":"Foyt’s Secret Weapons for the Indy 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo Credit: Anne Proffit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A.J. Foyt Racing is making the kinds of moves that can strengthen the team and make it a major player in this month\u2019s 105th Indianapolis 500. First, the hiring of four-time champion Sebastien Bourdais, coupled with the arrival of young Canadian racer Dalton Kellett, the addition of Charlie Kimball for the month of May and, finally, JR Hildebrand in a fourth Dallara-Chevrolet gives the Waller, Texas-based squad a viable chance for victory this year.<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: Anne Proffit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Foyt has invited his \u201cbrother from another mother\u201d Tony Stewart to join him in celebrating the 60th anniversary of his first Indianapolis 500 victory in 1961, an easy haul for the Indiana native who lives just down the highway in Columbus. The retired three-time NASCAR champion, who chose Foyt\u2019s No. 14 for his own race car when he started Stewart Haas Racing with industrialist Gene Haas, has long been a friend of Foyt\u2019s – as well as a member of the Texan\u2019s massive admiration society – and having the two together on the timing stand at the 105th Indy 500 will help propel those four drivers to success.<\/p>\n

Add to that a regeneration of the engineering staff, culled from a variety of teams, and you have a hungry group of drivers, engineers, strategists and mechanics who long to give team leader A.J. Foyt Jr. and son Larry Foyt the success they\u2019ve been striving for these past few years. It hasn\u2019t been easy to be a fan of the Foyt family\u2019s team; even this year they\u2019ve had profoundly poor luck as they\u2019ve worked to gain top-10 and podium results.<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: Anne Proffit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The addition of Hildebrand, despite the fact that he\u2019s been an Indy-only driver since 2018, could help turn the corner. After all, the California native does have something to prove after nearly winning the Greatest Spectacle in Racing his first time competing in the 200-lap enduro. In 2011, rookie Hildebrand competed with Panther Racing and had the lead coming out of the third turn on the penultimate lap. He was heading for home when he misstepped, slapped the fourth turn wall and allowed the late Dan Wheldon to take those coveted checkered flags. Hildebrand finished second and was named Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n

No doubt JR has relived those seconds a million times in his head, wondering what he could have done to change the course of history. There\u2019s nothing he could have done in hindsight; inevitably the history of the Brickyard track reads that he finished second.<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: INDYCAR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a no-brainer for Larry Foyt to take Hildebrand as a fourth driver on the team he\u2019s managing for his father. \u201cAt the end of the day he can win the thing,\u201d Foyt said about his newest hire. While it\u2019s always challenging to go from two full-season drivers in Bourdais and Kellett, getting Kimball\u2019s third-car deal together early meant the possibility of a fourth car. When Hildebrand became available, \u201cIt made all the sense in the world to take a guy that you know is going to give you some great information; he\u2019s going to help the whole group,\u201d Larry Foyt said.<\/p>\n

Hildebrand\u2019s car is the No. 1, which would rationally belong to six-time and reigning champion Scott Dixon, who prefers to use the No. 9 on his Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara\/Honda. The No. 1 throw-back livery is reminiscent of Foyt\u2019s first victory in the Indy 500; it carries branding from long-time Foyt Racing supporter ABC Supply. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting just to be here in a fresh environment, really excited to join the crew,\u201d Hildebrand said. \u201cTake away all the throwback stuff – what makes the entry interesting is looking forward to being with A.J. Foyt Racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

This May marks 10 years since JR Hildebrand\u2019s first Indy 500 adventure, one he considers \u201cjust kind of a part of my history. Every year I feel like I come out of Indy with something else, something new in my toolbox, something else that I\u2019ve learned, a new situation that I\u2019ll be more prepared for the next time around. All of that just gives me confidence that when the car is right, we kind of get things together, that I\u2019ll be able to capitalize for sure.\u201d 2011 might be a bittersweet memory for Hildebrand, but he knows that\u2019s simply part of the sport. \u201cStuff happens. I think at the end of the day, for me, it\u2019s a positive thing for me to be able to look back and know that I\u2019m ready for any kind of situation like that, that happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: Anne Proffit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And Hildebrand, Bourdais and Kellett can enjoy the knowledge that both team leader A.J. Foyt Jr. and his good friend and fellow INDYCAR champion Tony Stewart will them to success. It\u2019s one thing to have all the pieces in place and race personnel prepared to help the effort move forward. But it\u2019s the intangibles like having both Foyt and Stewart in the house at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that could work in the team\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

The NTT IndyCar Series begins its stay at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend with the GMR Grand Prix, the fifth race of the season. The 85-lap contest takes place on Saturday, May 15th on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway\u2019s 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course and is televised by NBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A.J. Foyt Racing is making the kinds of moves that can strengthen the team and make it a major player in this month\u2019s 105th Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":79526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,3470,5029,22],"tags":[2001,5614,8431,712,6802,41,1632,1192],"class_list":["post-79525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-column","category-news","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-aj-foyt","tag-anne-proffit","tag-bourdais","tag-indycar","tag-j-r-hildebrand","tag-news","tag-racing","tag-tony-stewart"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Hildebrand-in-car-2011-e1620857181499.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-kGF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79531,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79525\/revisions\/79531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}