Robby Foley didn’t get the cryptic one-word advice (“plastic”) Dustin Hoffman did in the epic movie “The Graduate.” If he did, it might just be “racing.”
Foley is still in college and is also learning graduate-level racing lessons from Will Turner and Bill Auberlen. It might not have happened were it not a crushing football injury that changed Foley’s life.
However, it wasn’t the end of the world for Foley. He spent a lot of time with his dad autocrossing when he wasn’t playing stick-and-ball sports.
“Racing was always my passion, but I didn’t think it was attainable,” Foley explained. “I was autocrossing in karts with my dad at a young age, more or less as a hobby. I was more serious about baseball and football. I had a leg injury at 14 and it was a turning point in my life about what I was going to do.”
Foley attended his first Skip Barber driving school while still on crutches, then went on to SCCA racing a Mazda MX-5 (Miata). Next, it was back to Barber’s Winter Series in the MX-5.
“They had a scholarship system if you won it would pay for that series and the next level up. I won that championship, which got me a Mazda contract to run in MX-5 Cup,” Foley said. “It’s just meeting the right people and getting the right opportunities. From there I went to LMP3. It was a big step and in 2017-’18 and through a mutual connection I met the guys at Turner (Motorsports). Foley has stayed in college, wedging online classes in between race dates. He will eventually get a degree in business administration with other studies in mechanical engineering.
The first meeting between Foley and Tuner was dubious at best.
“I thought here’s a young gentleman who doesn’t look like a race car driver because he’s not tiny,” Turner explained. “I’m not saying that he’s big, but he’s not a little tiny formula car driver. So, when I first saw him, ‘Oh, I thought this one doesn’t look like the part.’ He was brought to me by another acquaintance who said: ‘I think this guy has some talent. He’s a really good driver coach, super calm, engineering-type mind. Would you be OK putting him in a car?’”
Turner’s doubts quickly faded.
“When I saw him look over the car, check out the car thoroughly and ask the right questions even before he got into it, I thought he’s not the ego guy who just jumps into a car and proves he’s going to be the fastest. I thought, ‘Well, this kid really knows something and has an engineering-type brain,’” Turner recalled. “So, he goes out in the car and clicks off a bunch of laps and I wasn’t looking at lap times because I told him, ‘This is not like the Gong Show (a televised 2005 Roush Racing test for aspiring drivers) that you have to go fast to get a ride. If you’re fast you get nothing and if you go slow you get nothing.’”
At that point, Foley got Turner’s attention.
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