CHRIS TROTMAN/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES , THE ENTHUSIAST NETWORK/GETTY IMAGES

From the February 2017 issue

C/D: Do you sleep well the night before a big race?

AJF: I sleep well. I probably slept better when I was driving than I do now as a team owner not winning any races. I’m not used to running like we’ve been running the last couple of years.

C/D: Have you ever been scared in a race car?

AJF: I’ll tell you, there wasn’t a race that went by that I didn’t thrill myself one time or another. These people who are “nothing’s ever scared me,” well, they’re full of crap. I’ve heard that from top-name drivers, and they’re just bullshitting themselves. I thrilled the shit out of myself many a time.

C/D: When do you think you peaked as a driver?

AJF: I probably peaked around the middle of the ’60s. But ’67 was a good year. I hung in there pretty good. In ’66 I got burnt, but I came back in ’67. Probably ’67, I’d say.

C/D: Who is the meanest driver you know?

AJF: A.J. Foyt. If someone ever hit me on purpose, I tried to take them out. You’ve got to have the will to win. And that’s not what people have today. You show me a guy who has never won and is happy, and he doesn’t know what winning is like. I guess that’s what is hard for me to swallow right now. It’s hard to sit back and see yourself get beat. And you try and talk to some of the younger drivers and they kind of look up and . . . well, to hell with them. If you’re so goddamn smart, why don’t you show me how to win?

Left: A.J. Foyt drives his Ford-powered Coyote 67 in the 1967 Indianapolis 500. Right: A.J. Foyt after his 1967 Indianapolis 500 win. CHRIS TROTMAN/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES , THE ENTHUSIAST NETWORK/GETTY IMAGES

C/D: Is it hard to find good people to work for your team today?

AJF: It really is. People don’t want to work like the old people. I mean, we might work to two or three in the morning. These people want to come to work at eight and leave at four thirty or five at the latest. Even if you’re behind, they still don’t want to do nothing. And you pay them about four times the money that you used to. Racing is more like politics today than racing, as far as I’m concerned.

C/D: Why do you think that your generation of drivers was so versatile?

AJF: Well, you tried to race everything just to make a living. These days these guys make so much money just to sit in their car. If Parnelli Jones, Dan Gurney, or I didn’t do something, we didn’t eat good that night. Today’s guys have it all handed to them. It’s not like it used to be.

C/D: So, what are your thoughts on Mario Andretti?

AJF: I didn’t give a shit about Mario Andretti when I was racing against him.

C/D: Parnelli Jones?

AJF: Parnelli was real tough to race against. Real hard. He ranks right up there in first with Jim Hurtubise in sprint cars.

C/D: How about Mark Donohue?

AJF: Mark was a good racer and a super guy, but I don’t think Mark had that killer instinct. Those other two had the killer instinct.

C/D: If you were starting driving today, what would you do?

AJF: Well, the dirt tracks wouldn’t do you no good anymore, because the average guy who drives these days doesn’t even know what a dirt track is. If you put one of them on a dirt track—half-mile or mile—they’d be lost. I guess if I was going to start, it would be the way most of these guys do. They start in go-karts and go up from there.

A.J. Foyt at a press conference for the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway in 2013. CHRIS TROTMAN/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES , THE ENTHUSIAST NETWORK/GETTY IMAGES

C/D: What’s the maddest you’ve ever been during a race?

AJF: Oh, a lot of times I was real mad. But not so mad that I’d be stupid, you know? Most of the guys I raced with knew how I was. We run real hard together.

C/D: What’s your favorite type of racing?

AJF: The best racing you can go to is a half-mile dirt track with sprint cars. That’s the greatest racing you can do. I call that real racing.

C/D: Is there a number two?

AJF: Well, I’d have to say a midget on half-mile dirt.

C/D: If you could write the rules, what kind of car would IndyCar be running right now?

AJF: I kind of liked it when you could build your own stuff, be your own engineer, and design the car to be whatever you want. But now it’s like NASCAR; they’ve made it spec racing. If you come up with an idea that will make the car faster, it’s not allowed. And that to me took a lot of racing out of the game. Nowadays, the rules are so tight, you can’t do nothing. I don’t know. It’s not as much fun as it used to be.

C/D: Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

AJF: No. If I was ever reborn, I wouldn’t do nothing different. I’ve had a great life. I come from nowhere, and who’d ever think I’d be the first four-time Indy winner? When I was working in my daddy’s shop, I’d listen to Indy every Memorial Day and run my midget at places like Playland Park. My dream was to someday be good enough to go up there and race in it. When I won it the first time, that was just a dream come true.

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