Page 1 of 2 The tussle between Arie Luyendyk (pictured below) and A.J. Foyt in is the first thing most people remember. From beginning to end, the Indy Racing League's inaugural visit to Texas Motor Speedway in 1997 was a sideshow. It opened with the strangest qualifying session I've been a part of. Searching for a hook to build interest in open-wheel racing's return to the Lone Star state, the IRL and TMS came up with an idea to insert a pit stop at the end each driver's qualifying run, with the duration of the stop counting toward the overall time it took to complete the run. As the impromptu air jack man for our little Thomas Knapp Motorsports/Genoa Racing team, the sight of our driver,...
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