NTT INDYCAR SERIES NEWS CONFERENCE

November 11, 2025

Larry Foyt

Santino Ferrucci

Tom Landwermeyer

Rob Gerbitz

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Joining us this afternoon, Larry Foyt. Good afternoon to you. Santino Ferrucci is also with us. Brigadier General Tom Landwermeyer, president and CEO for Homes For Our Troops, and Rob Gerbitz, Hendricks Commercial Properties.

Larry, tells how all this came together. It's a car that always looked great in the Indianapolis 500. Now we get to see it all season long?

LARRY FOYT: Absolutely, Dave. We couldn't be prouder to represent Homes For Our Troops. The continued support from the Hendricks family, now bringing on some of their other entities to put front and center, is just very cool, very exciting.

What a great day, happy Veteran's Day to all the veterans out there. We thought this was just a great day to make this announcement. Excited to get this beautiful livery on track.

THE MODERATOR: Great day for making this announcement, for sure.

Brigadier General, Homes For Our Troops president and CEO, $15 million has been raised over the last four Indianapolis 500s. What does it mean to you to have this program expanded for a full NTT INDYCAR SERIES season?

GENERAL TOM LANDWERMEYER: Happy Veteran's Day to everyone. Great to see Larry and Santino and Mr. Gerbitz. Thanks for the opportunity.

We couldn't be prouder. We have been partnered with ABC Supply Company and Diane Hendricks for several years now. Really fundraising centered around the month of May has garnered almost $15 million for us.

We're a national charity, but we don't spend much on advertising. Almost 90 cents of every dollar goes to our program. This year, being able to run the Red, White and Blue Stars and Stripes car out there, driven by no finer driver that I can think of with Santino to do it, Larry coaching him right behind, it has incredible potential to increase our awareness on a national level because it's all throughout the year, across 17 races.

We are incredibly blessed and just happy beyond words to explain what this could really mean for our organization and awareness of our mission of building homes and rebuilding lives.

THE MODERATOR: Rob, welcome to INDYCAR, welcome to motorsports in general. We know Hendricks Holding Company is of course the parent company of ABC Supply, who really got this program rolling in 2022. How exciting is it to take charge of this and raise even more awareness through this 17-race season?

ROB GERBITZ: Yeah, I couldn't say enough. For me and Hendricks Commercial Properties, the Geronimo folks, the time was perfect. Been to the race before. Certainly heard from Tom's team and Homes For Our Troops, been part of Larry and the Foyt team, being able to see things I don't get to see in my normal everyday job, which is really exciting.

When Diane and Konya came to me and said, We would really like Hendricks Commercial to jump into this lead, it was just perfect for us because we're kind of spread out across the country as well. Not as big as ABC in that regard.

I was really looking for that next philanthropic initiative for us to drive. Homes For Our Troops was perfect for that. It really felt like it was something we could really get behind as a company as a whole and really get people involved.

We've been really involved heavily with cancer research here back in our home. This really gives us an opportunity to support Homes For Our Troops across the board in just a really meaningful way.

It's really important to us and something that Diane and Konya have really pushed and instilled in me and everybody in our company, is giving back. Our troops are number one. It's perfect.

THE MODERATOR: Finally, Santino, you have one of the coolest looking rides on the track. How exciting is it to drive, represent this cause all season long?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: Thanks for everybody coming today. Obviously happy Veteran's Day.

Super honored to be driving the Red, White and Blue Homes For Our Troops Chevrolet, being back again with Larry and AJ Foyt Racing.

Obviously this livery, when we go to the Indianapolis 500 every year, is pretty much the favorite. Not sure how you cannot root for the car that's red, white and blue on Memorial Day.

To have the opportunity to be driving it for the entire season, raising more money and awareness for this wonderful charity and organization, is just a blessing.

Really thrilled. Can't wait to get started with opening tests next year, to see what we can do as a team, for all of Homes For Our Troops and what we can do for our veterans.

THE MODERATOR: Let's open it up for questions.

Q. Larry, how long did this kind of program take to develop? How long has it been in the works?

LARRY FOYT: Well, for us, with last year, we were carrying the Sexton livery most of the season. Then obviously with the tragic passing of Marlyne Sexton, we knew we had to get to work to secure something for the primary.

It really didn't take that long. Konya Hendricks and I, Konya Hendricks, she and I have always stayed in touch. Been a big supporter of the racing, as has Diane. We were just chatting about it. She really championed it, put it together. We were wanting to expand this program because it's been so successful with Homes For Our Troops.

Really just got with them, went up and met Rob from Hendricks Commercial Properties, and really everybody was just on board. We put it together pretty quickly.

That's the cool stuff, designing the livery and all that. We obviously knew we wanted Santino as the driver. He's been really the face of our team for the last few years, has helped lead this revival for us, getting us back toward the front.

It really all came together that way pretty quickly. Everybody on the same mission really is what it takes. That's the way we're headed.

Q. You mentioned uncertainty about the sponsorship of this car at the end of last season, also uncertainty of who was driving the other car. Now that you have Caio in, do you feel like things are stabilized? Maybe you thought they were stabilized. On the outside it looked like, Where are they in this transition? Do you still have any sort of relationship with Penske at all as far as technical going into next year?

LARRY FOYT: No, for sure, having both cars buttoned up, all the drivers, everybody ready to go, I feel like we're in a good spot early in the off-season here. We know what we're doing. We know what the goal is. We're focused on the racing side now. All of that is really good.

Yeah, I think the Penske things are good. I think I see that continuing. So far, no, everything looks really good for next year to pick up right where we left off.

Q. Santino, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is really more than a sporting event, it's a celebration of Memorial Day. How do you describe the pride and the responsibility that you feel carrying this type of livery on such a classic American holiday?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: I'd say over the last three 500s, carrying the livery, running the colors, Homes For Our Troops, it's been amazing. I mean, it's hard to describe walking out race day and rolling that car onto the track to fire off. It's very different.

Being my eighth 500 this season, fourth with Larry, with Homes For Our Troops, I can definitely say it's a very different feeling going out for the 500 driving the 14 car than it is anything else.

It's really cool. I feel like everybody's really behind us. My fan base at the Speedway is amazing. All the people that come out to support us, all the money that we can raise for Homes For Our Troops, it's special.

To be able to carry it now for the season, kind of more of like a dream come true with America's 250s as well. It's really cool. The stars are really aligning for us. Looking forward to building on our performances as we have done the last few years. Hopefully bringing us home a BorgWarner.

Q. From your standpoint as a driver, the last couple of years you've known early what you're doing next season, how important is that to have a successful next season?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, it's been really good, honestly. I really thank Larry for trusting me to drive the 14 car year after year.

This past season we've had a lot of ups and a lot of downs. I've made probably a couple more mistakes than I'm used to. To continue building on my book with the engineers, the team's gone through some changes as well. Larry has moved the entire team up to Indianapolis this past year, so it's a completely new crew of mechanics. Switched engineers midway through the season in '25. This is the first real season of stability, continuity with everything inside the team. I'm really looking forward to that.

I think a lot of the races that we had good success at we can build on. The races I've made some mistakes, things that we learned with the car, the Penske alliance, we know we can definitely make better.

I really look forward to what we can do this season.

Q. 10, 15 years ago when Jeff Gordon had the AARP Drive to End Hunger campaign, one of the questions was, Why doesn't the organization take that money and invest it in the Drive to End Hunger? The answer was, The money spent is to create awareness that can bring in more money for the operation. Can you describe how that works with your organization?

GENERAL TOM LANDWERMEYER: Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, we have never paid very much for advertising. We keep our admin costs very low. 90 cents of every dollar going to our program. We have done everything advertising grassroots, word-of-mouth.

To have something like this during the month of May the last four years, everyone knows what the month of May means in the racing world, God bless Diane and ABC Supply, have done a $1 million match for us for those four months. Almost $15 million we've been able to raise through that effort. That's just one race in one month.

To really achieve national level awareness for organizations, you really need to have some repetitive throughout the months, the year, to have your mission, your name, everything out there so people hear it more often.

This particular year, when we've got that livery, have our logo, it's got our URL on it, everything for all 17 races, Santino driving it fast as always, we've got some tremendous potential for national level awareness.

The best part of all of this is that it's really Hendricks Commercial Properties, Diane and Konya and everybody behind them, that's really footing this bill.

Where else could you possibly have a company that could take a bright light that's going to be shined on them for an entire year of racing, and instead of putting it on themselves, they put it onto a non-profit to try and get all the awareness possible that they can for the non-profit. That's what this organization is doing for us.

ROB GERBITZ: I mean, it's a commitment where we're really proud to be a part of and be able to make to Tom and the entire team from Homes For Our Troops.

This is a special moment for us and our support beyond the racing. It's going to be there from our team to help from volunteers to all these other aspects that Homes For Our Troops needs. That's how important we view it.

For us, it's just really exciting to be a part of it. We just can't wait for Santino to win probably 16 out of 17 races, I would guess this year (smiling), just be there to support not only Homes For Our Troops but certainly Santino, Larry, the whole team as well. Really excited.

Q. Larry, obviously the team expanded into INDY NXT the last couple weeks. Why was that decision made?

LARRY FOYT: Well, I think it gives us the opportunity to do a lot of things. As you saw, our second car, we hired Caio from INDY NXT. It's really a great resource for us to keep an eye on the young drivers coming up through, young mechanics that we want to train that maybe we're looking at in the future for INDYCAR, to keep that pipeline going with young mechanics and things of that nature.

For us, it was really a no-brainer and made a lot of sense. I think you're seeing a lot of the INDYCAR teams are getting involved. You get a little bit extra testing. It makes sense. You can really have a pipeline to keep your program healthy. That was the main reason we wanted to do it.

Q. Since you have Caio in the other car for next year, David has moved to Team Penske. When was that decision made to move Caio into the second car?

LARRY FOYT: We were impressed with what he did in INDY NXT with HMD. Finished second in the championship. I think he won three races. It was great that we had a great year as a team. There was a lot of interest from a bunch of drivers.

Getting to meet Caio, also met the sponsor Combitrans, we started talking about things. We did a rookie test with him, he was really impressive. That really made us decide that was the way we wanted to go there. So we put it together after that.

Q. Santino, heading into the year you were quite confident in the fact that the team could challenge for a championship. It didn't work out like that. Why weren't you as competitive as you could have been? How are you going to pull off winning 16 out of 17 races off?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: Part of the learning curve this coming season, we had a slight difference in dampers and book build from Penske. The alliance, it's really, really good for us. All of my references and everything we built with Adam and James the previous year had shifted quite a bit. We kind of struggled to figure out how to adjust to that shift accordingly. It took us longer than we anticipated.

We did have some races where we were really quick, we nailed it. But having to understand what you're doing with the car, it's not always easy. Some of the reads I was getting were a little bit skewed.

Dave and I both had different ways of being competitive. He struggled a lot less in qualifying than I did, but in the racing I was a lot happier with the cars at times. We were averaging 15-plus positions passing a race, which is not something we want to be doing (smiling).

I feel good about what we've learned, how we've adjusted some cars. I'm excited to go to some new tracks this season, like Arlington and Phoenix. It's always a good challenge for drivers when just a very small part of the grid has raced there. I feel good about a lot of things.

I feel really good coming back to Indy this year. We struggled a lot this past 500 with some weird things going on. Our car was just so competitive. To be carrying that same philosophy into the '26 500, I feel like we're going to be a very strong team. I think everything's going to hopefully go our way.

Q. Currently we're having a lot of talk about playoff systems in motorsports, like in NASCAR. Is the playoff system anything you could consider in INDYCAR or does it take away the integrity of the series too much?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: The correct answer for the playoffs is it worked for NASCAR to create a different set of championships. We race also 30-plus times a year. You're running 17 times a year. That's essentially what their playoff is.

It doesn't make any logical sense for us to do that. It's also not really fair when you get down to a race if someone has a bad day, they lose a championship. You saw it happen both in Xfinity and in Cup.

I'm not quite sure who came up with the rumor, but I highly doubt that we'll go to a playoffs style championship.

Q. Could Tom give us a little bit of background about what Homes For Our Troops actually physically does. Are they volunteers? Who are the beneficiaries? How do you choose them?

GENERAL TOM LANDWERMEYER: Sure, be glad to field that. Try not to take too long. I could talk forever about the organization.

We're a national charity. We're based just south of Boston, Massachusetts, in Taunton. We've been around since 2004.

Our mission is to build specially adapted homes across the country. We donate them to the most severely injured post 9/11 veterans.

We got started by a contractor in Taunton. In '04 he was watching all the severely wounded. By that phrase I mean loss or loss of use of multiple limbs, blindness, different levels of paralysis, severe burns, traumatic brain injuries, or in many cases a combination of several of those. That's the group that we're working for to support, to build these homes across the country.

He found a National Guard sergeant in Middleboro, Mass, that lost one arm above the elbow and one arm below the elbow. He went to see him and said, I think I can build you a home that would make your life easier moving forward.

The kid, just like all of our veterans say, I don't deserve anything like that. I can't accept that.

They went back and forth.

Finally to his credit the young man said, I'll let you build a home and I'll take it to on one condition.

Our founder said, What that is?

He said that, I'm not the last, that you keep building it for others.

Since that home went on the ground in 2005, this young man actually became an artist. Remember, he has no hands. He became an artist. He has his own art gallery there in Middleboro, Mass, called True Grit.

We have now built and donated 424 homes across 45 states. We have another project underway right now in Casper, Wyoming, that we'll be giving the keys away to in February. That will be our 46th state. We've got another 68 projects underway across the country.

There are 100 veterans in the application process of our program. Working with the VA, there's more than 1,800 of these veterans with these kinds of injuries that would qualify for our program.

We average about 25 homes on the ground a year. The last several years we've been turning double-digit revenue increases in our funding, which is 100% from the American public. We get no state or federal money whatsoever.

But the double-digit increases in revenue, because of the cost of land going up, labor going up, materials going up, it's kind of kept us flat lined at 25 homes per year. That's what we're really hoping this national level awareness potential for this partnership this year may help us increase that because these veterans really need these homes.

They have a challenge in a regular home when they come back. If you think about where you live, if you have any steps to get up to the front porch, if you got a big step to go into the front door. Most doorways all through homes, both going in and out of, are inside the home, and are not wide enough to accept a wheelchair. If you have more than a single-story home, that means you have some stairs inside. These guys have a real problem with accessibility inside the homes.

Then safety, especially in places like the kitchen or the bathrooms is the most unsafe spots. They need a lot of assistance to do all the mundane things that we take for granted. Getting up in the morning, getting cleaned up, getting dressed, going out to work. All those kinds of things take a lot more time and effort than it takes for most of us to accomplish those.

In essence what they did was they sacrificed their freedom and independence for us so that we can continue to enjoy our freedoms every day.

Our homes are single story, about 2,800 square feet, four bedroom, two bath, energy efficient. They have more than 40 adaptations designed in every single one them to restore that freedom and independence to the veteran. That frees up the spouse, the caregivers.

We've built for veterans that have kids in their teens. Those children have never known anything but being a caregiver. That's a different outlook on life. When you can take the bonds off of those kids and the other family members, the whole family thrives.

That's a little bit about who we are and what we do. Thank you for the question.

Q. Santino, you have quite a good track record at the Indy 500. What are you doing to hopefully get that win next year?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, obviously you don't change mentally how I prepare for the race. I kind of do the same thing every year to prepare to win there. We finished fifth this year. We had a third in 2023. Some of it's just kind of coming down to a little bit of luck and fewer mistakes, just little things.

2023 was completely out of our hands. This past year our last pit stop, just the redhead had gotten stuck. We had a couple other things going on that day. That's just due to the weather was pretty crazy. Metal (indiscernible), little things that make a bit of a difference there. You lose some time in a pit stop, you're missing a second at two and a half football fields. Little things at the end that make that race so difficult to win.

Just trying to perfect and work with the team, make sure that we build the cars correctly, make sure we've done all the little details, the little bolts, cross our Ts, dot our Is, all of our pit stops are perfect, I can hit my marks perfect every time. Everything inside the car that I do is routine. Just repetition. We just keep working towards that.

Hopefully this year is going to be our year. I feel really good about it. I know the team's working really hard, harder than ever. Working with my chief mechanic Steve, seeing the process when I was back up at the shop. I'll be back at the shop next month for multiple days, going through everything with them, making sure if we need to do anything more, change anything slightly, that we do it correctly, make everything as perfect as perfect can be.

Q. What does this partnership with Homes For Our Troops mean to you?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: Honestly it's really special. My grandfather was a World War II vet. I spent a lot of time doing things and working around military personnel. A lot of my close family are police officers. Working with some of my sponsors growing up, I've been to the Army-Navy game. Some of my wife's extended family is currently in that side of the military.

So just being able to do these things with the veterans, meet the veterans as well at the racetrack. This year was awesome. We got to take a bunch of veterans out to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, take them around in a Suburban, get the Suburban up on two wheels. It is great because they're all adrenaline junkies, just like myself.

Just spending time with them at the track, it's just so special. Getting to meet their wives. Even their dogs, their kids, stuff like that. Just try and show them a different side of the sport.

They're amazing people. Without them we also wouldn't have the freedoms we have today. This country wouldn't be the same. They deserve everything that we can give them.

Running this livery for a year, trying to raise as much money as we can, carrying a flag, we're just trying to give back. So it's a special cause.

Q. What would you personally consider as a win or a goal for next year?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: I have no idea. For a goal for the charity, I would love to double what we've raised in the last four years, or to match what we've raised in the last four years just at Indy so we can double the investment that's been put in via the racing program.

I'm curious to see how far it travels. I think winning Indy would definitely help that (smiling). I've got a lot of personal goals because I want to run up front, be in the media for all the right reasons. Yeah, I think a lot of pressure on myself to do that.

I think working with Tom and Larry and Rob here, a lot of things are going to happen behind the scenes. I think we're going to do a great job.

Q. You've got a new teammate in Caio. How do you think that partnership with him will go? Do you have any advice for him?

SANTINO FERRUCCI: I'm actually really looking forward to working with Caio. I got to spend some sometime with him this last week at Nashville. He's honestly probably among the easier drivers I've worked with in the last couple of years. Looking forward to that.

I like the driving style. He's very open-minded like myself when it comes to the race car, which I found quite unique and really easy. So just a couple of debriefing things with him. Him actually being receptive to some of my feedback immediately was kind of cool. I think we'll be able to do and accomplish great things.

Q. Larry, last year despite the domination of Palou and the Honda, we saw at some points of the year the Chevys and AJ Foyt car in contention for the victories. Taking all the lessons that you have made after this up-and-down season, is it the main goal for the next year to be fighting for victories more often than be the dark horse of INDYCAR?

LARRY FOYT: Yeah, I think for me the goal this year is to get back to Victory Lane. I think we're ready. We're ready to win a race. Obviously we'd like to win the big one in May.

I think as a team, we're ready to win. We showed that we had the pace last year. It's hard to say that we can contend for a championship. That's very difficult. There's some great race teams that we're up against. As we grow every year, they do, too.

We've got a great power supply with Chevrolet. No doubt there. I think Santino, we were on the podium a couple times. So close to getting that win.

I think if we don't win a race next year, I'll be really disappointed. Also getting both cars, Caio is a rookie, unfortunately in INDYCAR it's hard because there's not a whole lot of practice time or testing. So the rookies are learning out there. I think Caio will fight for Rookie of the Year.

Getting Santino back in the top 10. If you take away that penalty at Detroit last year, he was close to the top 10 again. I think we're now consistently fighting for the top 10 in the championship. So getting that and getting to Victory Lane would be a successful season.

THE MODERATOR: Rob, have you been to the Indy 500 yet?

ROB GERBITZ: Multiple times.

THE MODERATOR: As a company, it's your first foray into INDYCAR. You'd be okay if Santino won the Indy 500, right?

ROB GERBITZ: Yeah, that would be great. Would be a lot of fun, I'll tell you. For me, like I said, I think the last three, just starting to learn from Larry a little bit, how hard this sport is. That's just so impressive. The competition, the passion is something I'm really learning. It's really, really fun.

Q. Larry, you talked a lot about this announcement being something that means a lot to a lot of people. What does this special announcement mean for AJ Foyt Racing in 2026? Does it serve as extra motivation for the team as you chase wins and the championship?

LARRY FOYT: It does. It's really special. I think for all of things that everyone's touched on, but also the long relationship that we've had with the Hendricks, how much they've supported not only our team but INDYCAR.

I mean, I've got to think they are by far the longest running sponsor. I believe we started with them in 2005. You're talking about over 20 years. You don't see that very often in sport like this.

Their commitment to us and what they're doing now for Homes For Our Troops. Also I'm pretty partial, my favorite hotel is the Bottleworks Hotel in Indianapolis, when I stay there. That's going to be really special staying there this year.

Yeah, I mean, Tom was touching on Homes For Our Troops and I'll let Tom speak to more of this, what's also very cool about what they do, they don't just hand the keys to these veterans and walk away, they continue to support them as the veterans learn about the finances of home ownership and a lot of that. I'll let him talk to more of that. That's really a special part of the program as well.

We just want to do a good job for everybody. The pressure, I definitely feel more pressure this year because we want to perform for the Hendricks and for Rob and for Homes For Our Troops. We've got a lot to do on track and off track, but it's really exciting. It's just going to be a super fun year.

GENERAL TOM LANDWERMEYER: The most unique thing about our organization is we do stay in touch with our veterans for life. After we give them the keys, we don't just up the number on that tote board, this Saturday it will go to 425 homes we provided, but we stay in contact with them really for three main reasons.

One, we promised them a quality home. If there's any issues with them, we'll come back and fix it.

Second, all those adaptations that I mentioned that are inside the home, we need the feedback from the veterans and the families that are physically living in those homes and experiencing the challenges to make sure we got everything right, new things out there that can help them out, something that needs to be adjusted a little bit. We need that feedback.

The most important reason we stay in contact with them is the rebuilding lives aspect. These homes are not going to fix their injuries. These veterans have these injuries for a lifetime. They know it. They know the hand they've been dealt. They're not grousing about it, looking in the rearview. They're always focused forward.

They will have some great days in these homes, and their families are going to accomplish some things. We want to be there to celebrate with them. But these veterans are also going to have some down days. There's are going to be some days where they wind up in the wheelchair, in their bed, back in the hospital needing some help. We're going to be there helping them out.

That is the most unique thing about us, we stay in contact with our veterans. I really appreciate Larry bringing that up.

THE MODERATOR: On that note, we'll go ahead and leave it there for now. Again, Larry, Brigadier General Tom, thank you for your service, Rob, Santino, all thank you for this opportunity to catch up. Congratulations as the Countdown to 2026 is now officially on, or has been on, for AJ Foyt Racing.