MOORESVILLE, N.C. – When Kyle Kirkwood was just 13, he was racing go-karts in the Minimax class at GoPro Motorplex outside of Mooresville when former NTT IndyCar Series and current NASCAR driver A.J. Allmendinger noticed the kid.
“He had the scholarship program come out, and I had a fantastic season and he decided to pick me,” Kirkwood said. “That’s how the relationship came about. I probably wouldn’t have been able to compete in a lot of the races that I raced in in 2012 and ’13, if it wasn’t for him.
“It definitely … he definitely had a role in where I’m at, at this moment,” he added.
Thanks to Allmendinger’s scholarship, Kirkwood has gone on to become the only driver to win a championship on every step of the ladder of the Road to Indy, including the USF2000 championship and the Indy Pro 2K championship before joining Indy Lights.
He won this year’s Indy Lights championship with 10 wins in 20 races, which earned him a $1 million scholarship to compete in three IndyCar Series races in next year, including the 106th Indianapolis 500.
The 23-year-old driver from Jupiter, Fla., was able to sign a full-time deal with A.J. Foyt Racing. The IndyCar rookie is attempting to do something that the great Tony Kanaan and Sebastien Bourdais were unable to do.
That is return the No. 14 Chevrolet at A.J. Foyt Racing to prominence in the NTT IndyCar Series.
Kirkwood was destined to become a full-time driver in IndyCar next season. For most of the season, it appeared that team would be Andretti Autosport.
Team owner Michael Andretti was close to purchasing the Sauber F1 team and would have moved Colton Herta into the Formula One World Championship. That deal, however, was never completed because of an issue over who would own controlling interest in the team.
Herta would remain in IndyCar and the open ride in the No. 29 Honda, previously driven by James Hinchcliffe, went to Italian Canadian Devlin DeFrancesco.
That made Kirkwood a free agent and on Nov. 10, he found his racing home at A.J. Foyt Racing.
Despite the fact it is owned by the Grand Champion of the Indianapolis 500, A.J. Foyt, the team has not won a race since Takuma Sato won the 2013 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
That remains the last time the No. 14 entry has enjoyed success.
Since Sato left after the 2016 season, Carlos Munoz (2017), the great Tony Kanaan (2018 through parts of ’20) and four-time Champ Car Series champion Sebastien Bourdais (2020-21) have piloted Foyt’s No. 14.
Despite their ability and past success, they didn’t come close to victory.
Now, it’s young Kirkwood’s turn to try to return A.J. Foyt Racing to glory.
“It came together rather quickly,” team president Larry Foyt said. “I was surprised that Kyle didn’t have a full-time deal. It was just one of those things everyone kind of assumed he was locked up where he was.
“When I found out that he was available, it was kind of a no-brainer for us,” he continued. “The kid deserves to be in a full-time IndyCar ride, and obviously with Seb doing his sports car things there were some conflicts there, and I think we really wanted a full-time driver in the 14 car.
“It just really worked out perfectly for us,” he added.
Bourdais, who at the end of the season said his IndyCar plans were “AJ Foyt or nothing,” has returned to IMSA Sports Car racing with Chip Ganassi Racing in the Cadillac DPi program.
That left the No. 14 available for Kirkwood.
“Oh, man, I’m absolutely over the moon right now to be driving for AJ Foyt Racing in the No. 14, filling in some really big shoes with Bourdais leaving like Larry mentioned and doing some sports car stuff,” Kirkwood said. “I’m at a loss for words because I’m ecstatic.
“It’s been my entire career building up to this moment, all the way from karting,” he continued. “I started when I was four years old, and I’ve always had dreams of making it to IndyCar, racing the Indy 500 and competing for a championship, and to do it with a legendary team like AJ Foyt Racing is absolutely incredible.
“I couldn’t ask for a better predicament,” he continued. “There’s so much history with the team, and with all the drivers that have been through that car, and I’m able to put my name on that list in my first ever IndyCar season, I mean, how much happier could I get? This is pretty much the best moment of my life.”
Kirkwood admitted he had been in discussions with “a handful of IndyCar teams,” he said, including discussions with teams in Europe.
“I definitely would have ended up something full-time,” he said. “The way everything came to fruition, I think it was the absolute perfect, perfect moment with a fantastic team where I could go in and also learn in kind of a low-pressure environment but also build up. There’s a lot of aspirations throughout the team and with new people coming in where I think we can create something pretty massive.”
Kirkwood remained under contract to team owner Michael Andretti, who had an option on the driver until Nov. 1. Kirkwood was promised the No. 26 Honda if Herta’s Formula One deal was completed.
“They were working on it for a really long time,” Kirkwood said. “Unfortunately, they got to pretty much 1-yard line with it, and it didn’t work out.
“Ultimately Michael made it aware to everyone that I would have ended up in the 26 car for the season, but no, this works out perfectly for me,” he continued. “I couldn’t be happier with the outcome of everything.
“We had that option period until Nov. 1st,” he added. “Andretti released me from that actually a little bit early, and me and Larry got in contact, and we spoke a little bit and we thought this was a perfect match for both of us, and it happened rather quickly, I would say within a week, week and a half.
“Ultimately, I’m driving in IndyCar full time next season,” Kirkwood said.
By choosing youth over veteran experience, the Foyt team is hoping to interject some enthusiasm and aggressiveness into the team that at times has appeared stuck in the past.
“When you have a guy that’s had the results he’s had and is young and enthusiastic and excited to get in the race car, people want to work with him,” Larry Foyt said. “It’s definitely a help on the team side to help you get the best people.”
“The entire team is so hungry to get back up front,” Larry Foyt continued, “and I’ve worked in positions before where I’ve started with a lower level team, if I look back at Indy Pro 2000, and I was racing for RP Motorsports, I think they finished fifth or sixth in the championship, they missed a couple races, but I saw what the team wanted to do, and I believed in them, and we ended up winning nine of the 16 races with the championship.
“I think this is a pretty similar position that we’re all hungry, we all want to do really well, and yeah, I’m ecstatic to try and push everyone forward to try and build an amazing team,” he added.
Larry Foyt believes in the current NTT IndyCar Series, if a team is able to develop the right driver-engineer combination, it can be successful even if it is one of the smaller teams in the series.
“Right now, in IndyCar being a mostly spec-type series, the damper department is where you’ve got to put a lot of resources, and we got a little bit behind on that, but we’ve been working hard to really update and make that department a priority,” he explained. “We’re putting a lot of our resources into that for next year. We have some exciting things coming down the road. I think it’s going to pay dividends, and we’re excited to see what that does on track.
“Like I said earlier, a couple tenths in this series is huge. I think if you can find a little bit of that elusive grip that the drivers always want, give them that feeling they’re looking for, you can be right up front in IndyCar,” he added.
“The thing is we all want to be pulling in the same direction,” Larry Foyt continued. “We’ve all got the same goals. The hope for us is that things go so well that we all want to continue together and keep building this thing, so we just have to see how that goes.
“But that’s the thing; the first part is done, meaning we feel like we’ve got a great driver, and we’re going to put the best around him that we can and go see what we can do and then just continue to build our resources, build our team,” Larry Foyt added.
“When you’ve got a guy, like Kyle that not only has shown how capable he is, but he’s also got a great attitude, people want to work with that,” Larry Foyt said. “I think it’s going to help us attract the best people we can.”