The one bittersweet note to the victory was that the team patriarch was not there to experience it in person. A.J. Foyt still traveled to virtually all of the races at that point, but with heart surgery scheduled for later in the week, he’d been forced to take a pass on Long Beach.
LARRY FOYT: Dad was at home. At that time he was traveling to pretty much all the races when he was feeling well. So that was big on so many levels, because I remembered stories he had told me… I believe both his parents passed shortly after he’d qualified for Indy. He really wanted to bring the trophy home for his Dad, because his Dad was pretty sick. So it was good for us as a group, because even though he wasn’t there, he was always such a big presence for us, and to know that we could go out on our own and bring something back to him… it meant a lot.
And he was very happy for us. He watched the whole race, and he was super-happy for us. And it was good for ABC, because they’d stuck with us for a long time hoping to get that first win. And for us, still a small group but with the history and everything… it was hard with Dad not being there, but it was still great to make that phone call with good news.
TAKUMA SATO: The first voice I heard when I jumped out of the cockpit was A.J.’s, over the phone, and he was so happy.
I can remember the celebration like yesterday. We enjoyed the moment, so much and in fact I enjoyed it too much. I did a victory lap, and then on the podium with me was Justin Wilson, who was a long-time friend, and Graham Rahal, who in the future would be my teammate for several years. The two tallest guys on the grid – and then in between them, me, probably the shortest guy!
So I did a one-lap celebration lap, but I was already covered in champagne, completely soaking wet. And remember, it was quite a cold temperature. I was air-cooled so badly, so by the time I came back…
Then I had to do three hours of satellite interviews, still soaking wet – and we did it on the beach, and the beach was so windy. So I felt so bad after that. I knew the team wanted to celebrate so badly at the dinner, but I was shivering and felt awful, and had a high temperature, so I went to bed! So we weren’t able to celebrate together that night, me and Larry, but I know it meant a lot to him, and A.J., and the entire team.
DON HALLIDAY: I remember when I was going through my degree and you’d have a finals exam, and then you’d walk out of the room and somebody would say, ‘what do you think? How did you answer such-and-such?’ And I’d say, ‘er, I don’t remember that one’, because I’d already moved onto the next challenge. I think it’s like that for me with the race. It was a good feeling going through the weekend because you could feel it building, and there was a growing confidence in what Takuma felt he could do with the car, and the envelope the car had was more than you needed, I thought. But once we had the result, I relaxed very quickly.
RAUL PRADOS: I remember everybody being super-happy, and the team going to dinner to celebrate. It had been a long time since the last victory for Foyt.
It was super-special. The victory was fantastic, but something I have a great memory of was going into the Indy 500 and leading the championship for A.J. Foyt. He is a legend, and he was happy, and you could tell. I have nothing but good things to say about A.J. He’s very emotional, but he has a great heart and he is very, very passionate. So it was fantastic to be part of that atmosphere. You had a flag that showed you were leading the championship, and obviously at that time we had the flag for the whole Month of May. That felt very special and was very motivating for the whole team.
Long Beach 2013 was followed immediately by another street course: Sao Paulo. After a slow start to the weekend, the No.14 team found their stride and Sato led a large part of the race before being passed on the final lap by Hinchcliffe.
TAKUMA SATO: Firestone brought the previous year’s tire package, so the performance of the grip was different [to Long Beach] and the teams that were competitive in 2012 were fast again in practice. We were actually struggling a little bit, so we just decided, ‘why not use last year’s setup’, because A.J. Foyt Racing had been good at Sao Paolo in 2012, and all of a sudden we were P2. And then qualifying was competitive, we ended up leading the race and almost winning.
LARRY FOYT: I was still more new to being on the box and I called a pitstop with no tire change to get us to the front, and it almost worked! You don’t see a lot of that anymore.
The Long Beach/Brazil weekends would prove to be Foyt’s peak in 2013. After finishing in the top 10 in three of the opening four races, the No.14 managed just one more top 10 over the rest of the season – a seventh at Milwaukee – and Sato eventually finished the year 17th in the championship.
TAKUMA SATO: In the second half of the season, honestly speaking, we really struggled to develop. Our car maintained its performance but everyone else overtook us.
RAUL PRADOS: Looking back and thinking about why we didn’t win more, the IndyCar doesn’t have power steering and with Taku, we struggled with the steering. He doesn’t like the very heavy steering that an IndyCar has. It took a few iterations for us to go to a bigger steering wheel. With a bigger steering wheel, it’s much more difficult to make steering corrections, so there is always a little bit of compromise.
I remember throughout the years we changed a lot in terms of Taku’s seating position, the steering wheel size, all to help with that. I think during those years… not over a single lap, but over stints, it would have helped a lot with the consistency. Don’t get me wrong; Taku is extremely fit and highly-committed. It’s not about that; it’s about the leverage and the basic mechanics of his body.
Beyond 2013, if we’d have had a more competitive aero kit in the later part of working with Taku, I think we’d have been more competitive. It’s no secret that when we had the aero kit war, the Chevy aero kit was ahead.
LARRY FOYT: A lot of people don’t realize we had a testing crash at Mid-Ohio after Indy, and I think Takuma injured his wrist, and I think it bothered him more than he let on. You know, the strain of trying to turn these cars… I don’t think he was 100 percent after that.
Any disappointment at how Foyt’s 2013 season ended was tempered by the memories of that April day in Southern California when one of IndyCar’s smallest but most deeply-rooted teams beat everyone on one of the series most fabled circuits.
DON HALLIDAY: It’s amazing what a person can do when their mind is free enough to do it. It’s a very, very subtle thing. I think you see it obviously in tennis and golf, but the sportsperson, the good ones, there is an amazing capacity there. And if you can tap into it and give them the confidence that they perhaps didn’t have in the beginning, you can get a good result if you can mold things around them to allow them to have that good result.
LARRY FOYT: It was great for us. At that time we were still operating completely out of Texas and everybody had written us off, but the whole team was great. We a great sponsor that was very involved, and when you’re fast and you have a group of people that all enjoy working together, it just all came together. That was a lot of fun. Everything just seemed to gel right there. It was a good time.
TAKUMA SATO: Long Beach definitely helped us all bond. Foyt is a fantastic family team, and the No.14 boys were superb. They’re still some of my best friends.