Bulldozin’ Texans
Posted by TFG on August 4th, 2007
A.J. Foyt to oversee IRL team despite bulldozer accident
WALLER, Texas — A.J. Foyt plans to oversee his ABC Supply Racing team in the IndyCar Series race in Michigan this weekend, relieved he survived a plunge into a lake while operating a bulldozer.
The four-time Indianapolis 500 champion escaped injury but got quite a scare Thursday when the bulldozer went into a lake and landed upside down in the water.
Foyt was working on the edge of the lake when the bank underneath gave way. He estimated the bulldozer dropped about 15 feet into the lake.
“It scared me,” the 72-year-old Foyt said in a statement released Friday. “It was such a helpless feeling when that dirt broke away and I was going down and down.”
Foyt said the steel cage “probably saved my life, because without it, the dozer would have crushed me.” Once in the water, Foyt crawled through the front of the cage to swim out. He didn’t go to a hospital.
Foyt was attacked by bees and stung nearly 200 times when he was using a bulldozer to clear land on another piece of property in August 2005.
You’d reckon AJ freakin’ Foyt would have a man to do the bulldozing for him, but I sure understand that if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. Of course, I imagine it’s kinda fun to have your own bulldozer.
August 5th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Haha, Foyt always seemed to me to be the kind of man who would do just that sort of thing — his own bulldozer work, that is, not run the ‘dozer into the drink!
August 5th, 2007 at 9:59 am
With Old Ironhead having gone to his reward, I hereby nominate Anthony Joseph Foyt, Jr, as the new King of Tough.
The account of the latest incident gave me cold chills, however.
-k-
August 5th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Absolutely the King of Tough. Great moniker.
The crazy part is he’s seventy-damn-four years old and doing this kind of stuff. I’m guessing he just kicks Death in the balls if he sees him hanging around.