January 16: A.J. Foyt, racing legend, was born on this date in 1935

It's still possible that a driver racing today could win the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans over the course of a career. But it's getting less likely as the years go by, between ever more specialized forms of racing and the growing amounts of money needed to succeed. The only man to have done it so far was born on this date in 1935, in Houston where his father owned a race shop. Anthony Joseph Foyt supposedly knew he wanted to race cars for a living before he went to elementary school, and dropping out to become the greatest American driver of the 20th century looks like it was the right call — winning in Indy, NASCAR, champ cars and anything that had four wheels. What has kept A.J. Foyt running ever since isn't just skill butpersonality; the paddocks still trade in old Foyt stories, like the time a reporter put a live microphone in front of him at Indy to hear him say his car "drove like a tub" of fecal matter. Ed Hinton, the veteran Indy Star racing writer, once published the joke he heard about Foyt in 1975:

"...about a young race driver who was killed in the (Indy) 500 and went to heaven. St. Peter took the kid to heaven's own speedway, where all the late greats of Indy's past were zooming around.

"Wow! Billy Vukovich," the kid said as one car zipped past.

"Right," said St. Peter.

"And Jim Clark!"

"Right again."

"Frank Lockhart!"

"Bingo."

Then a blur shot by, numbered "14." From the cockpit protruded a red helmet with a Valvoline logo on the front.

"Gosh!" said the kid. "I didn't know he was here. He was leading the 500 when I left a few minutes ago. Did this just happen?"

"No, no, no -- you don't understand," said St. Peter. "That's God. He just thinks he's A.J. Foyt."

Here's ABC's Sam Posey telling his version of Foyt's story before the 1991 Indy 500: