Dan Gurney
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| Dan Gurney | |
 |
|
| Nationality |  American |
|---|---|
| World Championship Career | |
| Active years | 1959 - 1968, 1970 |
| Team(s) | Ferrari, BRM, Porsche, Lotus, Brabham, Eagle, McLaren |
| Races | 87 |
| Championships | 0 |
| Wins | 4 |
| Podium finishes | 19 |
| Pole positions | 3 |
| Fastest laps | 6 |
| First race | 1959 French Grand Prix |
| First win | 1962 French Grand Prix |
| Last win | 1967 Belgian Grand Prix |
| Last race | 1970 British Grand Prix |
Daniel Sexton Gurney (born April 13, 1931) is one of the most important figures in the history of American auto racing. The son of a Metropolitan Opera star,[1] he was born in Port Jefferson, New York, but moved to California as a teenager. He has been a driver, a car manufacturer and a team owner at racing's highest levels since 1958. He is one of only four US-born drivers (Richie Ginther, Phil Hill, Peter Revson and himself) to win a Formula One Grand Prix other than the Indianapolis 500, and the only one to win in a car of his own manufacture.
Gurney also won races in the Indy Car, NASCAR, Can-Am and Trans-Am Series. In 1967, after winning the 24 hours of Le Mans together with A.J. Foyt, he spontaneously sprayed champagne while celebrating on the podium. Apart from starting this tradition, he also was the first to put a simple extension on the upper end of the rear wing. This device, called Gurney flap (or wickerbill), increases downforce with minimal airflow disturbance.
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[edit] Formula One Career
[edit] Driver
After driving a Ferrari at Le Mans in 1958, Gurney was invited to take a test run in a works Ferrari, and his Formula One career began with the team in 1959. In just four races that first year, he earned two podium finishes, but the team's strict management style did not suit him. In 1960 he had six non-finishes in seven races behind the wheel of a privately-entered BRM. At one race, the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, a brake system failure on the poorly-prepared BRM caused the most serious accident of his career and a longstanding distrust of engineers. Ironically, the accident caused him to make a change in his driving style that later paid dividends: his tendency to use his brakes more sparingly than his rivals meant that they lasted longer, especially in endurance races.
After rules changes came in effect in 1961, he teamed with Jo Bonnier for the first full season of the factory Porsche team, scoring three second places. After Porsche introduced a better car in 1962 with an 8 cylinder engine, Gurney broke through at the French Grand Prix at Rouen-Les-Essarts with his first World Championship victory - the only GP win for Porsche as an F1 constructor. One week later, he repeated the success in a non-Championship F1 race in front of Porsche's home crowd at Stuttgart's Solitude race track. Due to the high costs of racing in F1, Porsche did not continue after the 1962 season, though. While with Porsche, Gurney met a team public relations executive named Evi Butz, and they married several years later.
Gurney was the first driver hired by Jack Brabham to drive with him for the Brabham Racing Organisation. While Brabham himself scored the maiden victory for his car at the 1963 Solitude race, it was Gurney again who took the team's first win in a championship race, in 1964, again at Rouen. In all, he earned two wins (in 1964) and ten podiums (including five consecutive in 1965) for Brabham before leaving to start his own team.
[edit] Manufacturer
In 1962, Gurney and Carroll Shelby began dreaming of building an American racing car to compete with the best European makes. Shelby convinced Goodyear, who wanted to challenge Firestone's domination of American racing at the time, to sponsor the team, and Goodyear's president Victor Holt suggested the name, "All American Racers", and the team was formed in 1965. Gurney was not comfortable with the name at first, fearing it sounded somewhat jingoistic, but felt compelled to agree to his benefactor's suggestion.
Their initial focus was Indianapolis and Goodyear's battle with Firestone, but Gurney's first love was road racing, especially in Europe, and he wanted to win the Formula One World Championship while driving an American Grand Prix 'Eagle'. Partnered with British engine maker Weslake, the Formula One effort was called "Anglo American Racers." The Weslake V12 engine was not ready for the 1966 Grand Prix season, so the team used outdated four-cylinder 2.7-liter Coventry-Climax engines and made their first appearance in the second race of the year in Belgium. Gurney scored the team's first Championship points by finishing fifth in the French Grand Prix at Reims.
The next season, the team failed to finish any of the first three races, but on June 18, 1967, Gurney took a historic victory in the Belgian Grand Prix. Starting in the middle of the first row, Gurney initially followed Jim Clark's Lotus and the BRM of Jackie Stewart. A muffed start left Gurney deep in the field at the end of the first lap. Clark encountered problems on Lap 12 that dropped him down to ninth position. Having moved up to second spot, Gurney set the fastest lap of the race on Lap 19. Two laps later, he and his Eagle took the lead and came home over a minute ahead of Stewart.
This win came just a week after his surprise victory with A.J. Foyt at 24 hours of Le Mans, where Gurney spontaneously began the now-familiar winner's tradition of spraying champagne from the podium to celebrate the unexpected win against the other Ford GT40 teams.
Unfortunately, the victory in Belgium was the high point for AAR as engine problems continued to plague the Eagle. He led the 1967 German GP at the Nürburgring when a driveshaft failed two laps from the end with a 42-second lead in hand. After a third place finish in Canada that year, the car would finish only one more race. By the end of the 1968 season, Gurney was driving a McLaren-Ford. His last Formula One race was the 1970 British Grand Prix.
[edit] Complete F1 World Championship Results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)
[edit] 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).
[edit] 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.
[edit] Indy 500 results
| Year | Chassis | Engine | Start | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | Thompson | Buick | 8th | 20th |
| 1963 | Lotus | Ford | 12th | 7th |
| 1964 | Lotus | Ford | 6th | 17th |
| 1965 | Lotus | Ford | 3rd | 26th |
| 1966 | Eagle | Ford | 19th | 27th |
| 1967 | Eagle | Ford | 2nd | 21st |
| 1968 | Eagle | Ford | 10th | 2nd |
| 1969 | Eagle | Ford | 10th | 2nd |
| 1970 | Eagle | Offy | 11th | 3rd |
[edit] NASCAR Career
| Born: | April 13, 1931 (age 75) | |
| Birthplace: | Port Jefferson, New York |
|
| Awards: | — | |
| NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Statistics | ||
| 16 races run over 10 years. | ||
| Best Cup Position: | ? | |
| First Race: | 1962 Daytona Qualifier #1 (Daytona) | |
| Last Race: | 1980 Winston Western 500 (Riverside) | |
| First Win: | 1963 Riverside 500 (Riverside) | |
| Last Win: | 1968 Motor Trend 500 (Riverside) | |
| Wins | Top Tens | Poles |
| 5 | 8 | 10 |
Gurney's first career start was in 1962. 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. However, the race was won by Parnelli Jones, another open wheel driver making a one-off appearance. Gurney's last start came in 1980.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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'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 Le Mans class-winning closed-cockpit Cobra Daytona GT coupe driven by Gurney and Bob Bondurant mistakenly made the cockpit "greenhouse" two inches too tall -- the only thing that permitted Gurney to fit in the car comfortably. [2]
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
- ^ [1] All American Racers bio
- ^ Road & Track July 2005. On the Road: Fast friends and fast cars.
[edit] 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.
| Preceded by Mike Spence |
Brands Hatch Race of Champions winner 1966 |
Succeeded by Bruce McLaren |
| Preceded by Bruce McLaren Chris Amon |
Winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1967 with: A.J. Foyt |
Succeeded by Pedro Rodriguez Lucien Bianchi |
