Foyt IV: "I was afraid to go high."
By Kate Shaw
Photo courtesy Champ Car World Series

TORONTO, Canada (May 30, 2005) – Newman-Haas Racing’s championship hopes took a body blow yesterday at the IRL’s Indy 500, when Champ Car World Series points leader Bruno Junqueira was put into the hospital and out of the 2005 championship hunt in a horrific crash late in the race. Junqueira suffered a concussion and fractured T-12 and L-1 vertebrae (lower back injury) when he was rammed into the wall by A.J. Foyt IV, who had no business on a race track with professional drivers. Foyt was five laps down and, by his own admission “afraid to go high”, when Bruno came up behind him to make a pass that would have been routine at the Milwaukee Mile.

Instead of moving up the track to get out of the way of a driver far quicker than he, Foyt held his ground and the cars banged wheels… and Junqueira was knocked unconscious and out of the running—overnight the news was hardly reassuring—as he was listed in fair condition and unable to make a statement. Today he had four hours of back surgery, and Dr. Terry Trammell, who completed the four-hour surgery on Junqueira at approximately 11:30 a.m. CST today, said the 28-year-old Brazilian suffered no additional spinal injuries and will remain hospitalized until the end of the week. Foyt IV also suffered a significantly lesser back injury that Bruno and was released from the hospital today.

Junqueira was visited by many of his fellow drivers following the surgery. He is expected to sit up tonight and stand tomorrow. Providing there are no complications, and at this time none are anticipated, he faces a minimum 6-8 weeks of recovery and may miss half the season.

And all for what? For the glory of running in the IRL’s Indy 500? For points? Champ Car drivers don’t get any. For the win? Ask Paul Tracy what chance there is of that. What on earth was the best team in Champ Cars, containing the defending champion and a potential champion-in-waiting, doing trundling around in circles with a pack of people like Foyt IV?

Most of the Champ Car World Series drivers stopped visiting the IRL’s Indy 500 after Paul Tracy was cheated out of his win a couple of years ago. Only the Newman-Haas team, under the insistence of Mr. Haas (“I,” said Mr. Newman, “have a little problem with the management of that place.”) showed the colours this year. Both cars were wrecked before the end of the race, and Bourdais was not impressed by the caliber of driving out there. "The race was really crazy and wild." he said. "I should have been taken out five times before I was. Accidents happened right in front of me and I was able to avoid them."  Until the last one, anyway.

Indeed, so desperate was Tony George to get 33 cars out there, that he not only allowed the hapless Foyt IV to play bumper pool with the big kids, but he actually let in a Canadian driver who had to be dismissed from the race after 47 laps because his Chevy could not keep up a even a minimum allowable speed. Robin Miller has in the past quoted odds of 85% that any particular driver will be seriously injured in every IRL race, and the IRL’s Indy 500 is even more dangerous than that because a number of the people who drive in it are not professional drivers and are pedaling in marginal cars. at arguably one of the fastest tracks on the planet.

In fact, even the regular cars are unsafe at racing speed. After Zanardi’s accident the Champ Car chassis was revamped to make it as safe as an F1 car; true, no car will be perfectly safe at those speeds, but if you recall the big pile-up in rain-soaked Surfer’s Paradise – in spite of some frightening flying cars, not a driver was seriously hurt. You wouldn't see that kind of result in the IRL.

Fortunately, Bruno Junqueira seems likely to recover from his IRL experience, this time. But as he’s lying there in Methodist Hospital tonight, I imagine he’s recalling the titanic battle that he had with Chip Ganassi, who used every kind of pressure on him including some unprofessional predictions about Bruno’s future in racing if he didn’t buckle under, to try to force him to join the IRL when Ganassi deserted the ship … and perhaps he’s saying a thankful prayer or two that in the normal course of events he has a car, and fellow drivers, on which he can depend.

As for me, I thought immediately of Jim Clark, the gentleman racer of Formula One, who was killed in an F2 race – a pointless, unnecessary experience he could have avoided and did not. Thank God in His mercy that unlike Jim Clark, Bruno lives to race another day, although he will never be the same.

Keep Bruno Junqueira in your prayers as he recovers from this accident that didn’t have to be. And be glad you are not Foyt IV … and even more thankful that you are not Carl Haas. Wouldn’t you like to be the proverbial fly-on-the-wall when Newman meets Haas next time?