A.J. Foyt returns to Road America after 21 years, drivers ready for its challenge - MotorSportsTalk

After a 21-year absence, team owner and former driver A.J. Foyt will return to the legendary Road America road course for this weekend’s Kohler Grand Prix.

Foyt has not been back to the 4.048-mile, 14-turn high-speed track since 1995, when his car was running in the CART IndyCar Series.

Foyt switched to the upstart rival Indy Racing League the following season. The IRL is now the Verizon IndyCar Series and will bring Indy car racing back to Road America’s home in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, for the first time since 2007.

Sebastien Bourdais won that race under the Champ Car World Series banner and hopes to pick up where he left off nine years ago.

Foyt or his drivers competed eight times at Road America, with the best finish being an eighth-place showing by Mike Goff in 1991. Foyt’s best finish as a driver there was 10th in 1988.

But Road America also brings back bad memories for Foyt, who nearly died in a crash there in September 1990. He suffered severe injuries to his feet and legs when the brakes failed on his Lola, sending him head-on into a dirt embankment.

It took him eight months and several surgeries before he was able to climb back in a race car (for the 1991 Indianapolis 500).

But Foyt isn’t looking back at the past. He’s ready to start a new chapter at Road America with drivers Jack Hawksworth and Takuma Sato.

This will be Hawksworth’s second go-round at Road America, having competed in a sports car race there in 2014 (finished 12th).

“I love Road America,” Hawksworth said in a team media release. “It’s very quick, has a variety of corners and is the only track we go to that is over four miles in length.

“I had a fantastic time racing there in 2014 made even better by the fact that I had a very quick car.”

But Hawksworth also understands there’s a big difference between a sports car and his Indy car.

“The Indy car has a lot more grip and downforce so certainly braking will be later and the corner speeds higher,” he said. “It’ll just be a case of adapting to the car and putting it on the limit.

“In terms of passing, it should in theory be easier as we have the push-to-pass system in Indycar racing. Road America has a lot of character, and it is technical like other road courses yet it still allows for a lot of passing and action due to the length of some of the straights and the big braking zones.”

Sato, meanwhile, will be returning to Road America after taking part in a test there last September.

“Road America is very impressive and a great fun track, as expected,” he said of his first impression of the venue. “I’ve heard so many positive stories about Road America since I joined the IndyCar Series, and I know everyone and as well as the fans wanted IndyCar to go back there.

“So it was a nice experience that we had a great crowd show up at the test day last fall, and I had a lot of fun driving this superb track.”

While drivers like Max Chilton and retired great Mario Andretti compare Road America to Belgium’s famed Spa road course, Sato sees a greater similarity with Italy’s Imola.

“It is as fast as I experienced at possibly Imola,” Sato said. “Both tracks are the classic narrow type of track but very fast with good elevation change.

“For the drivers, you need a lot of commitment because there are so many fast corners. From an engineering perspective, you need a good stable car through the high speed sections and performance under braking with such a low downforce car.”

Another reason that this weekend is important for the Foyt teams: Primary sponsor ABC Supply Co. is headquartered in Beloit, Wisc., about 135 miles southwest of Road America. The company plans on having close to 1,000 employees at this weekend’s race.

The race will be televised live on NBC Sports Network, starting at 12:30 p.m. ET.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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