SEPTEMBER 20, 2024
New A.J. Foyt Biography Review: A Fitting Super Book About Super Tex (autoweek.com)

New A.J. Foyt Biography Review:
A Fitting Super Book About Super Tex

A.J. Foyt: Survivor, Champion, Legend, Volume 1 is a most
captivating, in-depth look at one of America's true racing legends.

By Mike Pryson Published: Sep 20, 2024 2:48 PM EDT

JAMES DRAKE // GETTY IMAGES

The book at times will likely surprise even the biggest Foyt fans.
Author Art Garner is not afraid to poke a few holes and pump the brakes on a story that has grown or even changed over the years.
The book is published by Octane Press and comes out October 1.

Imagine a book that delivers everything you've ever wanted to know—or thought you knew—about racing legend A.J. Foyt.

And then some.

Well, it's coming, as author Art Garner has turned a nearly five-year-long project into the ultimate racing biography on one of America's ultimate racers.

A.J. Foyt: Survivor, Champion, Legend, Volume 1 written by Garner—a motorsports author with more than four decades in the business and a former Honda public relations guru—covers the life and times of the four-time Indianapolis 500 winner from Foyt's birth in Houston in 1935 through the 1977 racing season.

This is no run-of-the-mill or pot boiler biography. On the other hand, you'd expect nothing less from a book about one of the greatest racers and racing personalities of all-time. This biography—or at least Volume 1—lives up to any expectations or hopes you might have had for the ultimate A.J. Foyt bio.

This book is no weekend-at-the-beach read. Give this one the time a piece this complete deserves. It checks in with a hefty 550 pages, and there are another 56(!) pages of notes and bibliographical information citing sources for seemingly every anecdote from A.J.'s incredible journey through 1977.

"I call it a classic biography," Garner told Autoweek. "It's pretty in-depth, and part of it was because the project took place during COVID. I had nothing else to do."

Garner's work on the book began in November, 2019, and is rooted in a Garner interview with Foyt for another project. After the interview where Foyt shared some incredible family, racing and life stories, Foyt's people asked Garner if he would be interested in doing a Foyt biography.

Who could say no to A.J.?

The project has become basically Garner's life for the past five years.

This biography lives up to any
expectations or hopes you might have
had for the ultimate A.J. Foyt bio.

"I worked on it every day—about five hours a day from about 6 a.m. until about noon or 1 o'clock," Garner said. "Christmas, New Year's, every day for five years. Almost two years of that was COVID. And just about everybody was home. If I wanted to talk to Al Unser, Rick Mears, they were available and in most cases they were looking to talk to somebody."

And the stories flowed.

Garner lays out the book to where each chapter is a separate story. While the book looks intimidating a first glance, it's an easy read. It allows a reader to put it down for a while and come back and read another great Foyt story that could stand alone. Reading the chapters out of order takes nothing away from the flow of the stories.

"Reading a bunch of bios, a lot of them jump around or focus on one thing or go back and forth," Garner said. "I'm not that creative. I'm a grinder. It just seemed like the easiest way to get started was to start at the beginning and keep going. It all just kind of fell into place.

"I've wondered many times as the book came together, is this the best way to do it, is the going to keep people's attention? You're always questioning, 'Is this any good?'"

The 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans with Dan Gurney, left, and A.J. Foyt, right,
was a highlight of the first half of Foyt's racing history.

GETTY IMAGES // GETTY IMAGES

Rest assured. It does, and it is.

The book at times will likely surprise even the biggest Foyt fans. Garner is not afraid to poke a few holes and pump the brakes on a Foyt legend that has grown and changed over the years.

The book's note package is testament to an author who dug for the root of many of the now Foyt legends. Garner shares what the top journalists and the top racing publications of the day said on the day some of these stories originated—rather that just relying on aging memories or recanting stories that may have grown like an out-of-control wildfire through the years.

"I just wanted to tell what actually happened, what was really reported back in the day," Garner said.

Foyt's legend includes success at the Daytona 500.

RACINGONE // GETTY IMAGES

Case in point is the legend of a big Foyt crash at a NASCAR stock car race at Riverside, California, in 1965. Dueling with the likes of Junior Johnson, Marvin Panch, Dan Gurney, and Parnelli Jones, Foyt lost control of his Holman-Moody-prepared Ford Galaxie and nearly lost his life.

"The car left the track at an estimated 100 mph and flew about forty feet in the air before disappearing in a canyon. The first impact popped the windshield out of the car and kicked up a huge dirt cloud, the car emerging in a series of end-over-end flips. The Galaxie stopped just short of the track pointing at the middle of Turn Nine, having carried so much speed it nearly hit the cars Foyt was trying to avoid. Panch would say he felt the car's final flip."

The next part of the story may surprise some Foyt fans. It doesn't exactly fit the legendary narrative shared by many old-time racing fans today.

"The story is that he was pronounced dead by the first couple of guys who reached him at the track." Garner says. "And then Parnelli Jones saw him moving in his seat, and Parnelli jumped in his car and cleared dirt out of Foyt's throat and basically brought him back to life."

Great made-for-TV drama, no doubt.

One problem.

"Well, that didn't happen," Garner said. "That story has reached mythology levels. When I first started reading the stories from the day—and there are a lot of them—there were a lot of reporters covering racing at the time. Bob Thomas was a reporter with the L.A. Times at the time who later became a great PR guy who worked for Nissan.

"None of Thomas' stories from that day at Riverside talk about Jones saving A.J. In fact, they talked about a Holman and Moody crew member—who no one seems to be able to identify—who went into the car and helped revive A.J., who had passed out.

"A.J. doesn't remember any of this, but he repeats the legend. And Parnelli later said, 'No, that didn't happen. I didn't do that.' If Parnelli Jones says that, I believe it."

Garner said that's just one of the A.J. myths that are debunked, or at least clarified, by the book.

"The Riverside story was the biggest surprise to me," Garner said. "And I think it will be the biggest surprise to people who have heard the story over and over again."

The book is as much a Foyt encyclopedia as it is a biography. Volume II, Garner promises, is in the works and about a third of the way complete.

"The plan was not to do two volumes, but when it got to be this size (Vol. 1 is about 600,000 words), it was like, 'Hey, nobody buys big books anymore.'

"I asked the publisher, well, what do you want to cut? There's no easy cut. You might be able to take 1,000 words out here or there, but you can't take 100,000 words out. There was just no place to cut."

Garner can thank the great A.J. Foyt for that.