INDIANAPOLIS — A.J Foyt Racing saw moving the entirety of its operations to the Indianapolis area as the next step. 

For years, the team had built and prepared its cars in Waller, Texas, a suburb of Houston. But with other teams building headquarters in the Indianapolis area (including Rahal Letterman Lanigan, Andretti, and Prema), A.J. Foyt Racing moved the preparation of its cars to its Main Street location in Speedway.

For team owner A.J. Foyt, It came down to the number of race-minded people in the area.

“I shut down the shop in Houston about a month ago, and I moved everything up here,” Foyt told IndyStar at his book signing event in Speedway on Thursday. “When I was down there driving, it wasn’t hard, but it’s so hard to get people. And up here you’ve got a lot of race people. And I felt like since I had my shop up here, I’d do all my operations up here.”

The team had split its operations between Texas and Indianapolis for years, with a team of engineers in both locations. With the team becoming more and more competitive, team president Larry Foyt said, it was time to bring everything together.

“We had such a great team down in Texas, and we’ve made it work,” Larry Foyt told IndyStar. “But I think I just felt like, OK , we’re at that point now where the next step of competitiveness is probably bringing everything together. And A.J. was at a point where he was ready for it, and there were some good guys available up here. And it’s nice, because all our engineers were already pretty much up here in Indianapolis and out of this facility, and they like to be out and see their race car. They want to touch it. It just helps with a lot of things. It was just time to get everything under one roof.”

The decision to move their operations to Indianapolis comes after Santino Ferrucci, driver of the No. 14 Chevy, had one of the best seasons in A.J. Foyt Racing’s history. Ferrucci had 11 top-10 finishes, two top-five finishes, and one pole on his way to a ninth-place ranking in the series — the highest finish for an A.J. Foyt Racing driver since 2002.

Near the end of the 2024 season, Ferrucci signed a multi-year contract extension with the team. Ferrucci is testing IndyCar’s hybrid system, including the energy recovery system, in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s annual fall tests this week.

“He drove a hell of a season for me,” A.J. Foyt said. “I just really like him because he don’t put up with no bull(expletive). That’s what I like about him.”

A.J. Foyt Racing’s resurgence is also on the heels of a technical alliance with Team Penske, which gives A.J Foyt Racing technical support and additional engineering staff. The alliance between longtime friends A.J. Foyt and Roger Penske started in September 2023. After a full season in 2024, Larry Foyt is pleased with the results.

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“It was great for us to have some more teammates on board, working with them,” Larry Foyt said. “What an organization, obviously, I think we were able to do some things to help them out at Indy, and they certainly helped us all throughout the year. So far, I couldn’t be happier with the way that’s going and, I mean, couldn’t pick a better organization to be with, really, so looking forward to continuing that.”

Now, after a successful season in 2024 and the consolidation to Indianapolis, A.J. Foyt Racing is hoping to be in a place where it can win some races. 

The team also signed David Malukas, who is going into his fourth year in the series, to a multi-year contract starting in 2025. Malukas drove 10 races with Meyer Shank Racing in 2024 with a sixth-place finish in Toronto.

“I think the next step for us — last year, we got a pole, top-10 in the championship, had top-five (finish), but we want to take the next step,” Larry Foyt said. “Of course, we want to win the 500 and we want to win some races. And now I think we feel like we’re at a place where we can do that.”