As a driver A.J. Foyt could be cantankerous, angry, unapproachable and sometimes mean. On the race track, though, Foyt was a clean racer. But 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones may have been the only driver Foyt ever spun out.
“We had a lot of close races together and it’s lucky we still survived – especially some of the Midget races we were in,” said the 81-year-old Jones from his office in Torrance, California. “It was ‘Dog, Eat Dog.’
“A perfect example is one time he spun me out in the trophy dash in a Midget race at Ascot Speedway. I said, ‘That’s it; I don’t want nothing to do with him again. I’ve had it with him.’ Right before the main event I’m down adjusting a torsion bar and somebody came up behind me and gave me a big hug and it was A.J.
“He was a clean racer. He spun me out but that’s about the worst of anything that I knew he ever did to anybody in competition.
“He has always respected me and I pretty much respected him.”
Foyt and Jones were two of a kind – drivers who would race anything on wheels and do it better than anyone. And that is why the era from 1961 to 1967 was so glorious as both drivers were inexorably intertwined at the Indianapolis 500.
Foyt won his first Indianapolis 500 in 1961 and the co-rookie of the year was Jones, who started fifth and finished 12th leading 27 laps. Jones won at Indianapolis in just his third attempt in 1963 – a race Foyt finished third. In 1964, Jones was outrunning the field until his car caught fire in the pits on Lap 55. Foyt went on to claim his second Indy 500 victory that day – the last driver to win the Indianapolis 500 in a front-engine Roadster.
In 1967, Jones was driving Andy Granatelli’s famed STP Turbine and was cruising to victory leading 171 of the first 196 laps. But just four laps from victory one of the most inexpensive parts of his car – a transmission bearing – failed and the Turbine came to a stop on the race track.
Foyt went on to win his third Indy 500 and became the only driver in history to win the race in both a front- and rear-engine car.
“I had good competition with A.J. in the short period of time that I was there,” Jones said. “I enjoyed it very much. The tires were skinny and the drivers were fat; now the tires are fat and the drivers and skinny.
“I took to Indianapolis well but A.J. ran a lot more there than I did. I only drove there seven years.
“When I was driving the Turbine right before the end of the 1967 race I was thinking winning it again wouldn’t be as great as it was the first time so that helped me make the decision to quit because my business was taking off the ground. That made me the decision to quit running open-cockpit cars.
“You have to run the last lap if you want to win.”
Foyt’s image out of the car was far different than the man behind the wheel. That was almost by design.
“A.J. was pretty competitive,” Jones recalled. “I enjoyed my relationship with him. We actually became good friends. We went to some of the races together and stayed in the same room together. We ran stock cars and he was diversified just like I was in stock cars, IndyCars, sports cars and Midgets as well.
“One thing about A.J. is he’s a tough, tough old boy. He’s went through some crashes especially one at Riverside that really knocked him Cuckoo. But he is tough and always makes his way back.
“He has a big heart, actually. He just doesn’t know much about it.”