Dan Gurney
Encyclopedia : D : DA : DAN : Dan Gurney
| Year | Country (Track) | Car | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | French Grand Prix (Rouen-Les-Essarts) | Porsche | July 8 |
| 1964 | French Grand Prix (Rouen-Les-Essarts) | Brabham-Climax | June 28 |
| 1964 | Mexican Grand Prix (Hermanos Rodriguez) | Brabham-Climax | October 25 |
| 1967 | Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps) | Eagle-Weslake | June 18 |
Legacy
Among American drivers, his 86 Grand Prix starts ranks third, and his total of four GP wins is second only to Mario Andretti. Perhaps the greatest tribute to Gurney's driving ability, however, was paid by the father of Scottish World Champion Jim Clark when he took Gurney aside at his son's funeral in 1968 and told Gurney that he was the only driver Clark had ever feared on the track. (Horton, 1999).
American Championship Car
While competing in Formula One, Gurney also raced each year in the Indianapolis 500 from 1962-1970. The last 3 years, he finished 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively. In 1969, he did not race in Formula One, instead racing in the USAC Championship Car series and also in CanAm. He started a total of 28 Champ Car races, winning 7 times among his 18 top tens. In 1969, he finished 4th in total points, despite starting half the races of most top drivers. In 1968, he finished 7th with only 5 starts.
Full-Time Team Owner
Gurney and his protege Swede Savage drove identical factory-sponsored Plymouth Barracudas in the 1970 Trans-Am Series. Upon his retirement from Formula One, Gurney devoted himself full-time to his role as car maker and team owner. He has been the sole owner, Chairman and CEO of All American Racers since 1970. The team won 78 races (including the Indianapolis 500, the 12 Hours of Sebring, and the 24 Hours of Daytona) and eight championships, while Gurney's Eagle race car customers also won three Indianapolis 500 races and three championships. AAR withdrew from the CART series in 1986, but enjoyed tremendous success with Toyota in the IMSA GTP series, where in 1992 and 1993 Toyota Eagles won 17 consecutive races, back-to-back Drivers and Manufacturers Championships, and wins in the endurance classics of Daytona and Sebring. The team returned to CART as the factory Toyota team in 1996, but left again after the 1999 season when Goodyear withdrew from the series and Toyota ended their relationship with the team. In 2000, Dan campaigned a Toyota Atlantic car for his son, Alex Gurney under the AAR banner.
In 1990, Gurney was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. He is also a member of the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the Sebring International Raceway Hall of Fame, and the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame.
Trivia
- Apart from champagne spraying, Gurney invented the simple but effective Gurney flap at the end of the wings, which improves downforce.
- He played the catalytic role in bringing together a major American manufacturer - Ford - and European designer and Lotus founder Colin Chapman, resulting in the Lotus-Ford effort at Indianapolis and ushering in the "rear-engine" revolution in American open-wheel racing.
- In 1971, he won the second Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, by driving a Ferrari Daytona from New York to Los Angeles in just under 36 hours together with Car and Driver magazine editor Brock Yates. This inspired the series of movies with Burt Reynolds and others.
- Gurney developed a new kind of motorcycle called Alligator, which features an extremely low seat position.
- Gurney was nearly unbeatable in a NASCAR Grand National car at the old Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California. Four of his five victories came with the famed Wood Brothers. NASCAR so resented Gurney's dominance of this event (and his resultant "stealing" of prize money from and embarrassment of the NASCAR good-old boys) that they docked him a lap for a minor infraction during the 1967 race, forcing Gurney to run hard enough to ruin his engine and breaking his streak of victories.
- Gurney's unusual height for a race driver caused him constant problems during his career. During the 1.5-liter era of Formula 1, Gurney's head and shoulders extended high into the windstream compared to his shorter competitors, giving him (he felt) an aerodynamic disadvantage in the tiny, underpowered cars. At nearly 6' 3", Gurney struggled to fit into the tight Ford GT40 cockpit, so master fabricator Phil Remington installed a roof bubble over the driver's seat to allow space for Gurney's helmet. In a fortunate error, the Italian coachbuilder which built the body for the 1964 closed-cockpit Cobra Daytona coupe driven by Gurney and Bob Bondurant at LeMans mistakenly made the cockpit "greenhouse" two inches too tall -- the only thing that permitted Gurney to fit in the car comfortably. http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=25&article_id=2357
External links
References
- [Eagle-eye]. Dan Gurney's All American Racers.
- [Dan Gurney]. GP Encyclopedia. The Motorsport Company.
- Blinkhorn, Robert. [Dan Gurney]. Grand Prix Racing -- The Whole Story.
- David, Dennis. [Dan Gurney]. Grand Prix History.
- Horton, Roger (1999). [Remember Jim Clark]. Atlas Formula One Journal.
- [The Gurney Flap].All American Racers - Gurney Flap.
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