A.J. Foyt put son Larry in the No. 14 for 23 races over two seasons. Credit: Autostock

Where is ... A.J. Foyt?

The little package containing the credentials necessary to get into the racetrack arrives every year without fail even though A.J. Foyt has long since retired as a Nextel Cup team owner.

	Inside the Numbers A.J. Foyt as a driver Starts 128 Wins 7 Top-5 29 Top-10 36 Poles 9 Laps Led 1518 Avg. Start 13.1 Avg. Finish 22.1 Earnings $705,184

Without much fanfare, NASCAR has quietly mailed yearly licenses to many of its retired drivers in hopes they will be seen at the track. It is good karma, good publicity and downright courteous to grant free passes to these men, and even though Foyt doesn't attend many NASCAR events anymore, he appreciates the fact that he can walk around the garage if he wants to.

But that is the problem. Foyt, who turns 72 on Jan. 16, can't get around like he used to. He severely injured his legs in a 185-mph crash at Elkhart Lake in 1990, injuries that irritate him to this very day.

"My legs got messed up pretty bad from that accident, and that was 16 years ago," Foyt said. "It's hard to walk any kind of distance. I had a knee replaced last year and I have to get the other one done but I've been putting it off. I'll probably have to take care of it after this racing season."

The injuries are a key reason you won't see him much around the Nextel Cup garage -- it is too much walking for him, too crowded, too darned difficult, and Foyt will be damned before he is seen with crutches. By contrast, Foyt can attend Indy Racing League events with the help of a golf cart.

"It's so hard for me to get around and there's a lot of walking you have to do," Foyt said. "With the Indy cars, I can use a golf cart to get around."

The man who once zipped around Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 220 mph is now content to sit on a bulldozer at roughly two percent that speed.

Like Junior Johnson before him, Foyt's passions revolve around his ranches and the bulldozer he plays with. Unlike Johnson, Foyt didn't walk entirely away from racing -- he still maintains a single-car IndyCar operation in Waller, just a few minutes from his ranch outside Houston. His son, Larry, became his team director late last year.

	Inside the Numbers A.J. Foyt as an owner Starts 194 Wins 0 Top-5 8 Top-10 16 Poles 1 Laps Led 95 Avg. Start 24.3 Avg. Finish 28.5 Earnings $9,025,596

"I like to mess with cattle ranching," Foyt said. "I also like to buy property and improve it. Since I can't drive race cars anymore, I like to drive bulldozers."

Foyt survived a scary killer bee attack -- yes, bees -- last summer when hundreds of the venomous insects attacked him while he was riding the dozer. Foyt might have been able to outrun the bees, but the bum knee let him down before he could reach the safety of a nearby creek.

The attack occurred just before the Brickyard 400, and Foyt watched the race despite grotesque swelling around the face. After Tony Stewart won, he called Foyt and kidded him about not being around to see him win at Indy.

"[My health] is pretty good except for the injuries from my racing accidents and that bee attack," Foyt said.

Foyt won seven times on what has become the Nextel Cup circuit, his biggest win coming in 1972 when he won the Daytona 500. He raced sporadically on NASCAR's top circuit until he was 59 years old, coming out of retirement to run the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994.

One little-known fact: Foyt made three Craftsman Truck Series starts, one of them in 1996, when he was 61. Foyt keeps the truck proudly displayed in his IRL shop.

Foyt still lives in that slice of east Texas where he grew up, but he also spends time on a second ranch in Del Rio, Texas in the western part of the state, where he hosts longtime friends who use the land for deer hunting. Foyt uses his Del Rio ranch to host hunts for employees of his IndyCar operation at the close of the IRL season.

He still sees old friends from time to time. Junie Donlavey, a car owner for over 50 years and seemingly one of the only car owners Foyt didn't drive for, stopped by to see Foyt when the IndyCar circuit hit Richmond last June.

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Foyt notes that not many friends remain, saying, "A lot of them are dead."

Foyt's NASCAR ties remain in his former shop in North Carolina, which housed a single-car Nextel Cup operation from 2000 to 2004. Foyt finally sold all his equipment at auction last August, although the building itself is still for sale.

"I do miss being a car owner in NASCAR, but I couldn't put the time into it that I needed to and I couldn't get the right people," Foyt said. "I didn't really have the money to do it proper so there was no sense still messing with it especially since I wasn't driving any more."

As a team owner, Foyt found it difficult to retain the necessary personnel to stay competitive, especially with crew member's salaries rising substantially with each passing year.

"I think the money is getting out of hand -- not so much the equipment, as the people," Foyt said. "I think maybe they better start thinking about putting a cap on salaries the way they do in other sports. As a driver I wouldn't like it, but it might be something they have to look into."

Foyt still tries to attend every IRL race -- he missed two last year following knee replacement surgery -- and he also finds time to watch portions of the Nextel Cup races every Sunday. He admits though, that he usually will head out to get something done during the middle laps.

"I usually watch the start and the finish," Foyt said. "I have too much to do to sit there for four or five hours and watch the whole race."