(born
April 13 ,
1931 ) is one of the most important figures in the history of
American Auto Racing . 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 five American drivers to win a
Formula One Grand Prix, 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.
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 .
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. In turn, Gurney married a
Porsche management employee named Evi Butz.
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.
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.
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 . 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 before the V12 failed again. 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 .
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).
(left) and Dan Gurney, 1970]]
Gurney and teammate
Swede Savage drove identical factory-sponsored
Plymouth Barracuda s 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.
- 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''.
