At 80, A.J. Foyt still winning race against time

DETROIT – They were close to pulling the plug on Super Tex last year.

He didn't want to live with brain damage, anyhow. He'd told his wife during his racing days, "If I'm going to be brain dead, I don't want to be put on a ventilator."

"She said, 'We will carry out your wishes,' " A.J. Foyt recalled in his hauler at Belle Isle on Saturday.

Foyt, 80, was reliving his latest brush with death. He's had so many, from race wrecks to being attacked by killer bees to tipping his bulldozer into a pond on his ranch and almost drowning.

He suffered chest pains in November last year, which resulted in him having triple bypass heart surgery ... and almost dying after the procedure, when his lungs wouldn't fill with air.

"The doctor called my wife and son Larry and said, 'It ain't looking good for A.J.' "

But like before, Foyt, the four-time Indy 500 champion, rallied.

"The doctor said, "It's not over; he's got enough oxygen to his brain.' For some reason, and I just can't tell you why, I heard them talking, and I woke up the next day."

The man named "Driver of the Century" has lived to fight another day.

Foyt is at Belle Isle to watch his A.J. Foyt Racing drivers Takuma Sato and Jack Hawksworth run this weekend at the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix.

It is just the second race Foyt — the only driver to win the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans — has attended this year, the other being last weekend's Indy 500.

A couple of years ago, Foyt caught a staph infection, then last year had a hip replacement. That's on top of the multiple race injuries throughout his legendary career — burns, breaks, fractures, concussions and an almost severed arm when he crashed at Michigan International Speedway during the Michigan 500 in 1981.

Foyt has been through the mill, grinded up, spat out and left for dead. But he just won't succumb. Not his time, he says.

"I can't believe it — that I'm 80," said Foyt. "I wasn't supposed to live to over 22, they said. So, I don't know if that is good or bad. Some days I feel my age, some days I don't. I'm not as strong as I was, but that comes with the illness."

Foyt takes a bit to get up off his seat in the hauler, but he still looks strong as a bull. His forearms are massive, the result of him driving sprint cars and midgets on the dirt as a young man. His chest, although cut open and held together with more hardware than on one of his race cars, is deep and seemingly immovable.

These days, Foyt and sons Anthony III and Larry are marketing their own wine under the label "Foyt Family Wines."

"My sons won a couple gold prizes out in California, so I guess its pretty good wine," said Foyt. "I'm not much of a drinker, but it tastes pretty good."

Better than the Andretti Winery in the Napa Valley?

"I told the boys, it had better be better," said Foyt of rival Mario Andretti.

Follow Detroit Free Press reporter Mike Brudenell on Twitter: @mikebrudenell.