Full Throttle

Lets walk back into history for a moment.

Ronnie Bucknum had a flurishing sports car racing career, winning Sports Car Club of America titles in 1959, 1960, 1962 and 1964, scoring 44 wins in 48 races. Like a bolt from the blue he was spotted by Honda engineers racing a Porsche 904 at Sebring and he was chosen to debut Honda’s fresh out of the box Formula 1 car in the 1964 German Grand Prix. Ronnie could never live up to expectations and scored his only World Championship points at Mexico City in 1965 where he finished fifth. His teammate Richie Ginther won that event in the sister Honda.

Later Bucknum ran a Carroll Shelby GT40 to third place at Le Mans in 1966 and competed in Indycar racing, winning the 1968 Michigan 500. He died from the after-effects of diabetes at the early age of 56.

During the same time frame the legendary AJ Foyt was winning in almost every form of racing known to man. If it had four wheels and a seat A.J. won with it. Indianapolis, 4 wins. IROC championship twice in succession. Foyt is the only driver in history to win Indy 500, Daytona 500 (1972) and 24 Hours of LeMans (1967 with Dan Gurney). His victories in his early days of sprint car and midget racing are countless.

Fast forward a few decades and the grand “Lady Irony” steps into, and merges this picture.

AJ’s grandson, A.J. Foyt IV, has run every IndyCar series event since 2003 in the #14 Foyt owned Dallara. With this weeks event on the road course at Infineon Raceway a change will be made as dictated by AJ the first and apparently “Lady Irony.”

Ronnie Bucknum’s son, Jeff Bucknum, takes over the ride this week.