Big Helmet to Fill : Now That Indy-Car Team Owner A.J. Foyt Has Retired, All Efforts Are Focused on Robby Gordon’s Qualifying Run

INDIANAPOLIS — After being upstaged last weekend by A.J. Foyt, his boss and mentor, rookie driver Robby Gordon of Orange today will make his first attempt to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

Gordon, who first attracted attention in the racing community with his off-road racing efforts, was the fastest non-qualifier during Friday’s final day of practice over the redesigned Indianapolis Motor Speedway circuit. He had a lap of 221.272 m.p.h. in Foyt’s Ford-powered Lola. It was Gordon’s fastest time of the month.

Gordon, 24, had hoped to qualify last Saturday when the pole position was up for grabs, but a scrape with the concrete wall--his third of the month--delayed his four-lap time trial. The accident also triggered Foyt to pull into the pits and end a career on the track where he won four Indy 500s.

“I don’t like to see anyone crash, much less one of my own drivers, but maybe the kid did me a favor,” Foyt, 58, said. “It made me realize I couldn’t drive my own car and tend to business with the other car. Racing’s just too complicated these days to do that.”

When Foyt gave Gordon and the crew the day off last Sunday, it meant that no qualifying attempt could be made until today.

“I don’t think qualifying will be a problem once I get out there,” Gordon said. His first two scrapes with the wall did little more that smudge paint on the concrete and rub letters off the tires, but the one that brought Foyt running caused substantial damage to the nose and right side of the car.

“I think Robby was pretty embarrassed by it all, but my job is to just calm him down and get four good laps out of him,” Foyt said.

Gordon has logged 88 laps at the speedway since going through rookie orientation three weeks ago with nine other rookies, including former three-time world champion Nelson Piquet of Brazil.

Gordon graduated from El Modena High in 1987, but was a professional driver long before then. He had just turned 17 when his father, veteran off-road racer Bob Gordon, gave him a ride in a practice car with Frank Arciero Jr. as his co-driver for the 1986 Frontier 500. They were scheduled to start five minutes in front of the senior Gordon, who warned them, “When I come up to pass you, don’t mess with me or anybody else. Just let us by.”

When Bob Gordon reached the first checkpoint, he asked what happened to his son, figuring he had crashed or broken down because he never saw him.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” he was told. “They were in and out of here about 10 minutes ago.” The next time he saw Robby was on the podium after his son had become the youngest driver to win a major desert off-road race. Bob finished second.

Two years later, Robby won the Baja 1000 overall in a Ford pickup truck by driving solo for 17 hours. His association with Ford--which ultimately led to the Ford/Foyt contract--was enhanced when he tested for Jack Roush’s IMSA team at Sebring. Gordon not only won the test, he won the first of four straight 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring sports car races.

Michael Kranefuss, Ford’s worldwide director of racing, said of the Gordon-Foyt liaison:

“They are so alike in terms of what they want to do and what they want to achieve. They both have no patience, they’re not very diplomatic but I think it will be great for Indy-car racing.”