+2 Book review: A.J. Foyt: Survivor, Champion, Legend
Book review: A.J. Foyt: Survivor, Champion, Legend
Occasionally, a racing driver comes along who’s so phenomenally good, and whose record of accomplishment is so amazingly long and lofty, that a single autobiography simply isn’t enough. Appropriately, this title is the first of a planned two volumes on the life and racing legacy of the American motorsport icon, Anthony Joseph Foyt Jr.
The singular challenge for any author attempting to tell Foyt’s biography is simply separating the sprawling mythology that surrounds the racing great from the record of his actual accomplishments, which are vast: He’s been retired from IndyCar for more than 30 years, but still holds the all-time lead for IndyCar victories, along with being the U.S. Auto Club’s winningest driver.
Foyt won in every type of car he ever drove; his victories include both Le Mans and the Daytona 500, along with being the first to capture the Indianapolis 500 four times.
Digging through results
The author is Art Garner, who emerged from a career in automotive PR to write two acclaimed books on the Indy race. It’s obvious here, from the earliest pages, that the author did yeoman work digging through ancient race results and other archival material to develop a comprehensive, meticulously detailed telling for Foyt’s sprawling career, encompassing both minor and significant races, that crams the 676-page narrative.
Remember, this is only the first volume, covering Foyt from his 1935 birth to his fourth Indy win in 1977. The reader will immediately recognize the precise, all-inclusive telling of Foyt’s stellar career.
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And even a cursory run through the pages will convince the reader that Foyt is truly fortunate to have survived to create this book. Aside from harrowing racing crashes that left him with burns and shattered bones, Foyt has overcome maladies including stings by killer bees and having a bulldozer overturn on top of him at a Texas ranch.
Some of those tales will have to wait until Garner’s ensuing second volume to be told, but the first one makes it clear that Foyt is a survivor of a particular violent and deadly period in international racing history. His phenomenal year of 1964, which included a driving championship and his second Indy win, took place amid unbridled carnage in American motorsport.
Up to 1977
Garner is one of automotive journalism’s most gifted storytellers, and has clearly relied on meticulous research, involving countless sources, to create the narrative behind this volume. Foyt’s life, from beginnings in a hardscrabble part of Houston, Texas, all the way to unalloyed stardom is fully explained here. The first volume recounts his career through his groundbreaking fourth Indianapolis win in 1977.
The book is extensively footnoted with a multi-page bibliography and source index, demonstrating the level of work Garner had to do to make this storytelling possible. There’s a welter of photography that goes all the way back to Foyt’s first ride, a kiddie race car that his father built by hand, perhaps being prescient about what was to come.
A lot of people, especially in the United States, consider Foyt the greatest racing driver ever. An effort this comprehensive to tell his story is both overdue and much welcomed. Available in October.
Author: Art Garner
ISBN: 9781642341782
Publisher: Octane Press
Pages: 656
Price: $29.95
