TULSA, Okla. – Noted midget crew chief Flea Ruzic and Team Ripper Racing will pay tribute to an American racing icon during the upcoming Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals, Jan. 13-18.
Jesse Colwell’s No. 14 Stanton SR-11-powered Ripper, which Ruzic will turn the wrenches on at the Chili Bowl, will carry a throwback livery honoring legendary four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt.
Colwell’s entry will sport the iconic rust-orange Coyote Enterprises colors that Foyt drove to his record-setting fourth victory in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
The paint scheme comes complete with several period logos, as well as gold-painted wheels, nearly matching what Foyt carried into the winner’s circle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that year.
It’s the third-straight year that Ruzic and Ripper team owner Steve Reynolds have brought a throwback car to the Chili Bowl, following on from a Martini & Rossi throwback in 2019 and Steve McQueen’s Gulf Oil paint scheme the year prior in 2018.
Ruzic said via phone on Tuesday that the chance to honor one of his childhood racing heroes at the biggest midget race in the world was one that he simply couldn’t pass up.
“We always put together a theme car or a tribute car every year for the Chili Bowl, somewhat like NASCAR … they do throwback schemes every now and then,” Ruzic explained. “So Steve Reynolds and I talked it over and he brought up the idea of doing a Foyt car, specifically the ‘77 Indy 500 car that he won his last Indy 500 in. And I loved that idea, both from the racing side and a personal perspective.
“We didn’t really want to do this without his approval, so I called Donnie Beechler – who’s a friend of ours, and said what we wanted to do and asked if he could get in touch with A.J. and see if he would be OK with it,” Ruzic added. “He agreed to do that, and then called me back about three days later and he said, ‘Man, A.J. is excited and floored that somebody would do that.’ And once he said we were good to go and to have at it, we went ahead and moved forward with it. I think it turned out phenomenally.”
Foyt’s No. 14 Coyote didn’t win the Indy car championship in 1977, but it did win races at Ontario (Calif.) Motor Speedway and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in addition to that year’s Indianapolis 500.
The Texan finished fourth in points on the strength of those three victories, and how Foyt went about his business in the heyday of USAC is something that Ruzic said he looks up to and tries to emulate.
“Man, when I was a kid, the Mount Rushmore of racing would have included A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and Richard Petty. Those were who everybody had heard of, common names that anybody off the street would know,” Ruzic recalled. “But for me personally, A.J. Foyt is somebody that I always looked up to. Not only could he hop in anything and drive it, but they built their own Indy cars. They developed all their own stuff. He controlled everything himself. He could just do it all and they were always fast.
“And then outside the car, he didn’t sugarcoat anything. When he got out of the car, he told you exactly what he felt, and that was it,” Ruzic added. “In the politically-correct world anymore, people get away from that and they’re more and more scripted … almost like politicians; they say what people expect them to say. But A.J. is somebody that a lot of people always looked up to, and I did and still do.
“He’s an American icon. He’s an American badass and that’s why we wanted to do this in honor of him.”
Much like Foyt did with his Indy cars in those days, Ruzic and Reynolds build all their own midget chassis from the ground up, something that Ruzic feels makes this tribute “a little extra special.
“He built a lot of his stuff himself in house, with his Coyote Enterprises. They did a lot of their own engine development, all their own chassis stuff, for a long time,” Ruzic noted. “That kind of fits in with what we do also. We build our own midgets from the ground up. We don’t buy a chassis or buy stuff and just pull it together. We handle pretty much everything on our cars.
“I guess it just works out that way, but if you ask me, it’s a pretty cool tie-in.”
Foyt will celebrate his 85th birthday during the Thursday preliminary night of the 34th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals, and Ruzic would like nothing more than to give the Coyote No. 14 a strong run for ‘SuperTex’ with Colwell at the wheel.
“If we can do that,” he smiled, “it’ll make all the long hours getting this car ready even more worth it.”
SPEED SPORT’s Chili Bowl coverage is presented by MyRacePass, the official timing and scoring app of the 2020 Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals. Fans can download the MyRacePass app on their phones to follow all the action during the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals. For more information on MyRacePass, visit www.myracepass.com and use the hashtag #GetTheApp on Twitter!
