Iowa
By A.J. Foyt


Don’t ever say it can’t get any worse, because it can. The Iowa Corn Indy 250 was proof of that.


We were done before the first lap was over! It was a quick end to what had been an encouraging start with Ryan Hunter-Reay driving the No. 14 ABC Supply car.


The weekend started out ok. The first practice was about communication and figuring out what Ryan was looking for in the car. In the second practice, he was 13th quick and I thought he could qualify even better than that—top 10 or 11. But there was a problem with the Iowa Speedway’s track surface on Saturday afternoon which caused qualifying to be cancelled. The ground water was seeping up through weeper holes in turn four; that had to be fixed before the Firestone Indy Lights race that night. No Indy car qualifying for us.


That was bad news for our ABC Supply team because now we’d have to start according to our points. With the season we’ve had, that meant 17th on a grid of 20. I know Ryan was disappointed because he felt good about his chances in qualifying.


Starting in the back of the field on a short oval—Iowa Speedway is only 7/8 miles long—is a crap shoot to put it bluntly. You’re running so close, it’s hard not to get caught up in other people’s mistakes.


And that’s exactly what happened to us.


On the first lap, E.J. Viso went high going into turn three, lost control and hit the outside wall. Then Bobby Doornbos also lost it (he said his car wasn’t handling) in the middle of turns three and four while Ryan was underneath him. Doornbos did a quarter spin into Ryan’s path and Ryan tried to squeeze by him but didn’t make it. He had nowhere to go when he clipped Doornbos’ left front wheel. The impact blew out the right front suspension on the No. 14. It came by slowly and I thought Ryan had just slowed down because of the Viso crash but he came over the radio to let us know his right front was hurt pretty bad. That was our heaviest suspension too because it’s always a dogfight at the short tracks.


He drove it to the pits and we thought about fixing it and going back out--but not for long. There wasn’t that much to be gained and a lot to lose. With the way the cars were crashing in that race, I’m glad we parked it, especially with our luck this year.


So we head to Richmond, Virginia this week for a Saturday night race on the shortest oval on the circuit! Racing at Richmond International Raceway is always exciting for the fans, not to mention the drivers and crews.


We should have a good car there and it’s a track that Ryan likes so I hope my ABC Supply team has something to celebrate. And it won’t have to be a win for me to celebrate, a top-5, top-10, heck just finishing the race in one piece will make me happy. I don’t know how it will turn out for us but I won’t say that things can’t get any worse. I know better.


I hope you’ll tune in to the Versus (VS) channel this Saturday night starting at 8 pm ET. And I hope we have something to celebrate when it’s all over.