Dan Gurney, One of the People Who Has Made America Great

He called his cars — made in California — Eagles, and his friends and fans nicknamed him Big Eagle. His company and team were the All American Racers (though they raced Toyotas for some time). He was one of less than a handful of American drivers to win in Formula One, but the only one to do so in an American race car, built in his own shop. He, along with A.J. Foyt and Roy Lunn, helped The Deuce kick il Commendatore’s ass at LeMans, in a car designed and built in Dearborn, Michigan. There was even a lighthearted attempt to draft him to run for president.

Dan Gurney was quintessentially American, one of the people who have made the United States a great country.

It’s not my purpose here to write an obituary or encomium. People who knew him can better speak to his life and accomplishments than I can. You can read what Marshall Pruett, Sam Smith, Peter Delorenzo, and Gurney’s fellow racers say about the man. I myself read of Gurney’s passing last Sunday while I was in between events connected to the Detroit auto show’s media preview.

On my way down the Lodge Freeway to Cobo Hall on the first day of the NAIAS media preview Monday morning, I was listening to a local sports radio station, a CBS affiliate. There was a one of those short features from CBS Sportsradio; I think it was Jim Rome. The commentator eulogized the recently departed Keith Jackson. I understood why, Jackson was a giant in his industry. I certainly enjoyed his play-by-play when the University of Michigan football team was playing on national television. Still, I was a little bit annoyed that nothing was said about Dan Gurney.

Yes, I know that compared to the stick and ball sports, even NHL hockey and soccer, auto racing is the abandoned stepchild of sports journalism. I’ve heard sports writers even deny that race car drivers are athletes, but then I’ve also heard them deride Tour de France cyclists as just being able to spin one foot after the other. However, it could be well argued that Gurney was the greatest American race car driver ever. He won driving sports cars, stock cars, and open wheel race cars. He won at LeMans, and in Formula One, USAC, NASCAR, Can-Am, and the Trans-Am Series. As a team owner he won the Indy 500, after earning four podiums as a driver, placing 2nd twice.

It wasn’t just as driver or owner that he had an impact on his sport. His 1977 “white paper” on open wheel racing in America and the need to consider the financial concerns of team owners lead to the creation of CART.

If sports journos weren’t going to honor Gurney, as I entered Cobo, I was hoping one of the car companies with whom he raced would acknowledge his passing. The news broke too late on Sunday for it to have been acknowledged at Ford’s Ranger reveal in the afternoon. As the media preview progressed, I grew disappointed. However, as I was doing one last round of the floor at Cobo on Tuesday to get photos I might have missed, at the back of the Ford display, where they were keeping the performance cars, I spotted a couple of round stickers on the flanks of the red Ford GT that was the centerpiece of that part of the Ford booth. They were in memory of Gurney, with an image of him at the wheel of his LeMans winning car, and “In Memory Of Dan Gurney. Legend. Friend. 1967 LeMans Winner. Ford Mark IV”

It was just a coincidence, but I suppose it was providential that someone at Ford decided to use the NAIAS to spotlight a ’67 Heritage Edition Ford GT, which shares its red-and-white livery with the Ford GT40 Mk IV Gurney drove to victory with A.J. Foyt at LeMans in 1967. That Ford’s memorial to Gurney went on a car that is a tribute to his victory is altogether fitting.

Good acts deserve praise, so I asked around and was told that the idea to memorialize Gurney at the show was that of Ford senior executive Raj Nair. Nair personally afixed the stickers to the red GT. Props to Ford for recognizing a great American and may Daniel Sexton Gurney rest in peace.

[Image source: author]