A.J. Foyt Racing was founded in 1965 by A.J. Foyt, one of the most successful and versatile racing drivers in motorsport history. Foyt, often referred to as “Super Tex,” is a four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 (1961, 1964, 1967, 1977), and his team was initially created to support his racing endeavors. 

“In this sport, you’re either the windshield or the bug. I choose to be the windshield.” – A.J. Foyt

In recent years, the team has been striving to break through the midfield and return to their former glory. Part of pushing forward and reaching higher is having the ability to rapidly prototype and make replacement parts quickly when needed. A.J. Foyt turned to WAZER to make sure they could meet those demands.

Rapid Prototyping

Race cars are in an endless development phase. All throughout the season, IndyCar teams are making adjustments and upgrades to their cars. Some of these are more general upgrades focused on overall performance, and others can be entirely built around one race at one racing circuit.

WAZER Pro has been a huge help to A.J. Foyt Racing as they speed up their prototyping. Using a waterjet to cut parts, they have iterated on designs both in their factory and trackside. The speed, accuracy, and repeatability of the WAZER Pro has been a big upgrade from the previous methods the team used. 

Not the Old Fashioned Way

Before WAZER was introduced into their shop, the A.J. Foyt Racing team would use a bandsaw to make general cuts and then mill out precise drill holes.  If heat wasn’t an issue and fit the use case, they would also use a plasma cutter on occasion. Unfortunately, both of these methods required significant time from the engineers, both in initial manufacturing and refining the part for use. Since introducing the WAZER to their workflow, those production tools have been used far less frequently. 

“Super straightforward. Anybody can pick it up.”

The team at A.J. Foyt Racing is finding the WAZER very intuitive and straightforward to use. WAZER’s WAM software can import files directly from their CAD software. Making new and old designs easy to load. 

“Obviously, when you’re doing things by hand, they just don’t quite come out the same all the time. The WAZER is definitely a lot quicker at manufacturing.”

Some of the parts they’ve created with a waterjet so far include a gearbox cover, brace for the fuel rig, and steering wheel race parts. Materials used for these parts range from sheet aluminum to ¼ inch thick stainless steel. WAZER Pro’s accuracy and waterjet process means far less finishing is needed on the parts produced, compared to plasma, laser, or making the parts by hand. This saves time and keeps the car on the track where it belongs. 

“My favorite part of using the WAZER is that it’s definitely designed around the user experience.”

Trackside Performance

Using the form factor of the WAZER Pro to their advantage, A.J. Foyt included the machine in their trackside shop. It has proved to be an incredible tool for making a ready-to-go part as soon as possible. The steering center lock is the most recent example of this. Racing tracks have different corners to tackle, and Indy car races on a wide variety of track types. This means the car needs to be set up for different steering angle settings depending on the circuit. With WAZER Pro, they iterated trackside a steering center lock to adjust the angle on the car for that specific race. 

“I was able to draw this up really quick on SolidWorks. So we’ve got a cutout on the WAZER that we use trackside.”

Unlike other methods previously used, WAZER Pro is repeatable and reliable. If an upgrade part like the new center lock is a good fit on the first car they try it on, they can quickly pull up the file and cut another one. This represents a significant improvement over previous methods, where the accuracy of the part was often dependent on the skill of the machinist. Beyond that, it is also “set it and forget it”, meaning that they can start a cut on the part they need and focus on something else while WAZER Pro does its thing.

Great Customer Support

Just like any powerful machinery, WAZER requires maintenance, and WAZER’s customer support team was more than ready to help when AJ Foyt Racing needed insight.

“After a few cuts, I was having a backflow issue with the abrasive. Basically walked over to my desk, sent an email over to WAZER, and before I even walked back up to the machine, I’d already got an email back for exactly how to fix the issue.“ – Jeremy Velarde, Design Engineer at A.J. Foyt Racing

Ease of use

“Self-cleaning to an extent where it’s actually collecting the abrasive constantly while cutting.”

WAZER Pro’s abrasive collection system works efficiently while cutting to collect used abrasive and store it in convenient bins for easy disposal. This helps to minimize effort on the user side. WAZER Pro also has a tank cleaning program that can be run to help break loose additional used abrasive for collection. These upgrades make WAZER Pro much easier to use and maintain than most waterjet systems.