DanGurney

Origins

Daniel Sexton "Dan" Gurney was born on 13 April 1931 in Port Jefferson, New York, the son of John Gurney, an opera singer with the Metropolitan Opera, and his wife Roma. The Gurney family moved to Riverside, California in 1948, where the West Coast hot-rod and sports-car scene of the early 1950s captured Dan's imagination. He served in the US Army Artillery during the Korean War (1952-1954), then began racing in California amateur events in his Triumph TR2 and a series of borrowed sports cars. His talent emerged quickly enough that by 1957 he was racing professionally in sports-car endurance events for Frank Arciero's privateer team and was sent to Europe in 1958 to drive for the Ferrari sports-car squad at Le Mans, finishing second.

Rise

Gurney's F1 debut came at the 1959 French Grand Prix with Ferrari, where he scored points in his second race start and finished fourth in the championship that year for the Maranello team. The 1960-1962 BRM and Porsche years brought his first F1 victory at the 1962 French Grand Prix at Rouen for Porsche — the only F1 victory ever scored by Porsche as a constructor, a result that closed the German manufacturer's brief F1 programme. Gurney moved to Brabham for 1963, where he scored two further wins and finished championship third in 1964 and 1965. His combination of European single-seater results and continuing North American sports-car commitments — winning the 1964 Daytona 24 Hours, 1967 12 Hours of Sebring and 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans (with A. J. Foyt in a Ford GT40) — placed him among the most versatile drivers of the 1960s.

Championship Years

Gurney did not win the F1 World Championship. His four F1 victories — France 1962 (Porsche), France 1964 (Brabham), Mexico 1964 (Brabham), Belgium 1967 (Eagle) — make him one of relatively few drivers to win F1 races for three different constructors. The most singular victory was the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps in his self-built All American Racers Eagle Mk1 — the only F1 victory by an American driver in an American-constructed car, an achievement no driver has matched since. Gurney founded All American Racers in California in 1965 with Carroll Shelby as initial partner; the company built F1, Indy and Formula 5000 chassis and went on to dominate IndyCar racing in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1967 USA Grand Prix the same year saw Gurney also win the Daytona-style 24 Hours of Le Mans for Ford — the year of his peak combined F1, sports-car and constructor achievement.

Style and Legend

Gurney's driving combined American sports-car aggression with European single-seater finesse. He is credited with several lasting innovations — the Gurney Flap, a small upturned trailing-edge tab on aerodynamic surfaces that increases downforce, has been used on F1 wings, road-car spoilers and aircraft control surfaces continuously since he and McLaren engineers first tested it in 1971. He is credited with the first podium champagne shower at Le Mans 1967 — celebrating the Ford win by spraying his bottle over Henry Ford II and the Ford executives, a tradition he started that has been universal in motorsport since. He was a six-foot-four-inch giant in the cockpit by the standards of his era; the Eagle F1 chassis was designed around his frame. Within the F1 paddock he was a respected and popular figure, with his career-spanning friendship with rival Jim Clark frequently cited as one of the great driver friendships of the era.

Beyond Racing

Gurney's All American Racers (AAR) won the 1968 Indianapolis 500 (Bobby Unser), the 1973 Indy 500 (Gordon Johncock), and continued as a major Indy team through the 1990s; the AAR Eagle chassis won numerous IndyCar championships and races over three decades. Gurney himself retired from F1 driving at the end of 1970 and from IndyCar driving in 1970 to focus on team management. His son Alex Gurney is a Daytona Prototype racing winner and continues the AAR business and family racing legacy. Dan Gurney died on 14 January 2018 at age eighty-six in Newport Beach, California, of complications from pneumonia. His four F1 wins, the unique American constructor victory at Spa 1967, the founding of All American Racers, the Le Mans win, the Gurney Flap, and the champagne celebration tradition together secure his place as one of the most innovative and complete figures in international motorsport history — a driver whose impact on the sport extends well beyond his championship results.