Robin Miller is replacing the very capable Dave Despain on Speed TV’s Wind Tunnel program Sunday night and one of his guests will be A.J. Foyt.
I can hardly wait.
First, Foyt is one of the last of the rough, tough, old-guard sprint car and midget racers who’s, a) still alive and, b) still actively involved in racing (Mario and Pancho Carter are the only two others I can think of off the top).
Second, Foyt once hauled off and punched Miller. According to the press release announcing his replacement role tonight, one of the questions Miller plans to ask Foyt is whether he had more fun punching him or Arie Luyendyk (who he slugged in Victory Lane at Texas Motor Speedway when there was some confusion over who actually won the first IRL race down there).
I’ve admired Miller for years. He’s the best-connected Indy car reporter in the business and he used to be the featured racing columnist on the Indianapolis Star. He also used to race in USAC’s midget division (not for the faint of heart), so he knows the sport from all sides. He’s been out there.
Anyway, in the old days, Miller used to host a bash at the Indianapolis Press Club that honoured the 31st, 32nd and 33rd drivers who made the field for the Indy 500. It was called the "Last Row Party" and sought to give the last three guys in the field a little publicity because once the race started it was highly unlikely they would ever be heard from again.
Although I never attended one (it was discontinued some years ago), I hear it was a "roast" in the true sense of the word.
So in 1995, my friend Joe Gosek makes the field for the 500 and he’s starting on the last row. He’s going to be roasted at the Indy Press Club by none other than Robin Miller.
On the afternoon of the party, I get a call from my friend Bobby Smith, who’s Joe’s best buddy. "Can you write some jokes that Joe could tell tonight?" he asked me. "Robin Miller is going to roast him and we think it would be a great idea if Joe could give it right back to him."
So I rattled off a couple of jokes and read them over the phone to Smitty, who wrote them down and thought they would do the trick.
Now, I don’t know what happened that night. I don’t know if Joe read the jokes and didn’t think they were so funny, or if he got nervous and didn’t think he could tell them properly, or what? But they were never told.
I’ve had them around for years. (I never throw anything out. I even have the jokes I wrote for Paul Anka once when he was on a concert tour and his manager called me up and asked for some "local" humour that Paul could use between songs. Then he got sick and they cancelled the concert and nobody told those jokes either!)
Anyway, here are the jokes I wrote for Joe Gosek to tell about Robin Miller at the Last Row Party at the Indianapolis Press Club in 1995.
"Robin Miller used to drive USAC midgets. He once drove in the Hut Hundred at Terre Haute and he made four pit stops – one for a flat tire and three others for directions."
Actually, that’s kind of funny. But I like this one best.
"Robin Miller was once punched in the nose by A.J. Foyt. Everybody said it was because of something Robin put in the paper but that’s wrong. He was in Foyt’s garage playing blackjack with the crew. Just as A.J, walked in, Miller said ‘hit me.’ So that’s what happened."
Wind Tunnel starts on Speed TV Sunday night at 9 p.m.
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