Posted on 01/14/2018 5:26:29 PM PST by God luvs America
100%
Can Am, F1, NASCAR, and Indy, all at their peak. And Gurney raced them all. One of the greats.
He was a legend during his own time, and deservedly so.
RIP.
.
He was a driver and an engineer. His grandfather was an inventor of the Gurney Ball Bearing and had a large manufacturing plant in NY. Both his mother and his father were singers at the Met. All his uncles were MIT graduates.
RIP.... Prayers to his family....
So many innovations for the Sport of Auto Racing.
A True Genius.
Thank You and RIP Sir
NUTSCAR PING
Saw Bobby Rahul’s tweet about the loss of Dan Gurney, very sad to lose such a great person both on and off the track.
I went ape the time I saw a Ferrari Testarossa on the cover of "Sports Car Graphic" (yeah, I be olde farte) so many years ago.
Why did not Revell make a Ferrari model of the TR?
My first plastic kit car was a Jaguar XKE. Next was the Shelby Cobra roadster, original 289 engine version. Saw them almost daily whee I lived, near the plant in El Segundo.
“All through the fifties and sixties, Indy was a national institution. Every Memorial Day, millions of Americans would take the day off, enjoy a picnic somewhere, and listen to the Indy 500 on the radio, portable or maybe car radio, turned up so it could be heard around the fire or at the picnic table.”
.........then along came Tony George, who queered the whole thing.
He and Foyt finished at Le Mans 32 miles ahead of the next car. 212 MPH down the Mulsanne Straight. One of the very best ever.
Here’s an interview with Brock Yates and an unidentified police officer. Gurney was in the room. Sometime in 1991
An interview with Brock Yates, Editor at Large of C & D, organizer of the Cannonball series of races across America, and arrested for driving at 109mph on 190th St, Redondo Beach, Ca.
Police: Mr Yates, you realize that driving 109 miles an hour on a city street constitutes a serious offense?
Yates: Uh, yes.
Police: You look very tired. Have you been on the road long?
Yates: You could say that.
Police: How long would that be?
Yates: Uh, about 27 hours and 44 minutes. Up until your man nailed us.
Police: Where were you coming from?
Yates: Uh, back east.
Police: How far back east?
Yates: Manhattan.
Police: Kansas?
Yates: Not exactly.
Police: New York?
Yates: Uh, you could say that.
Police: (long pause)You are saying that it took you and Mr Gurney 27hrs and
44 minutes to drive to 190th street in Redondo Beach?
Yates: Well, we had to stop for gas.
Police: Mr Yates, are you aware that it’s nearly 3000 miles from
New York City to Redondo Beach? Are you on drugs?
Yates: Legal. All legal.
Police: Will you submit to a test?
Yates: (Subject held out a pale arm)You want blood? Take all you want.
Police: (after blood is drawn)You are suggesting that you and Mr. Gurney drove 3000 miles in less than 28 hours?
Yates: Of course not. That’s impossible.
Police: Meaning what?
Yates: Meaning that our route was only 2870 miles long.
Police: That still means that you were averaging over 100 miles an hour up
until the time you were apprehended.
Yates: I told you. We had to stop for gas.
Police: Mr Gurney told the arresting officer that you never once exceeded
175 miles an hour. Surely you didn’t run that fast on public roads?
Yates: Well, the Daytona is 20 years old. I mean, what the hell do
you expect? We could only get about 7 grand in fifth gear.
That’s barely 170.
Police: That’s outrageous.
Yates: Don’t blame the car. We thought it would run quicker too.
Police: You miss my point. Was this some kind of race you were in?
Yates: Not exactly.
Police: A test?
Yates: Not really. It was sort of a favor to an old pal.
Police: A favor?
Yates: You see, Gurney is a pal. I ran into him at a big race at Watkins
Glen. Kirk White was there too.
Police: Kirk White?
Yates: Another pal. He owns the car. The Ferrari Daytona.
Police: So?
Yates: So this is the same Daytona that he lent us in 1971.
Police: I don’t understand.
Yates: The Cannonball. Gurney and I ran the first Cannonball in
that same Ferrari. In 1971. Don’t you read the papers?
Police: I was a junior in high school. What does all this have to do
with your speeding charge?
Yates: It was like this. First I was just going to give Dan a ride to the
airport. The we got to thinking. It’d been 20 years since the 1971
run. A few guys had beaten our record of 35 hours and 54 minutes...
Which we did in a bloody snowstorm, with no CB, and no radar
detector or any other sissy stuff. (Subject showed sign of
considerable stress during this portion of the interrogation.) So
Gurney and I decided to show this new generation of weenies how to
do it.
Police: So you reran the 1971 Cannonball? Is that what you’re telling me?
Yates: Uh, you could say that. Or you could say that I was just giving
Gurney a lift home.
Police: Were you arrested at any other time during this trip?
Yates: Uh, no.
Police: Not even stopped?
Yates: Well, we had sort of a counseling session in Ohio, but the cop let
us go.
Police: How fast were you going?
Yates: We were a little nervous about being low on fuel so we were
only going about 140. The officer took that into consideration.
Police: He let you go?
Yates: Sure. Ohio troopers are real understanding. He even gave us this
little badge here. (Subject displayed miniature Ohio trooper badge).
A nice gesture from some grand guys.
Police: No other stops? No other attempts to stop this madness?
Yates: A trooper in Missouri turned his flashing lights on, but we were so
far ahead of him and so much faster that we figured he had better
things to do than to drive all that way to catch up with us.
Police: You’re supposed to pull over when you see flashing lights.
Yates: Only when they’re in front of saloons and massage parlours...just
kidding. A little joke there.
Police: Very little.
Yates: Sorry about that.
Police: Okay. So what you’re telling me is that this was the same Ferrari
that you and Mr Gurney drove 20 years ago?
Yates: The very same.
Police: Do you know that the speed limit on 190th is 35.
Yates: You’re kidding.
Police: Can’t you read?
Yates: Sure. But I thought that only applied to school zones.
Police: Did Mr Gurney do much of the driving?
Yates: If you had one of the great racing drivers of history in your car,
wouldn’t you let him drive?
(at this point, Dr Lemley Watts returned with the results of Mr Yates’s
blood test. The doctor noted a high level of fatigue, and even higher
levels of fat, carbohydrate and caffeine in the subject’s bloodstream.
Enough, in the doctor’s own words, to “fuel the Missouri in a heavy
sea.”)
The Interview was continued the following day and went as follows:
Police: Was your corrective detention area comfortable?
Yates: You mean the cell? Yeah. Except for the guy in the upper bunk who
thinks he’s Charlie Manson’s personal trainer.
Police: Do you feel remorse for what you’ve done?
Yates: Tons.
Police: For violating speed laws, humiliating police officers, endangering
the public. All that?
Yates: Uh, no.
Police: What?
Yates: I’m remorseful because we had a hell of a run going there. We’d
have broken 28 hours for sure.
Police: A hundred miles and hour. Coast to coast. I don’t know what decent
citizens are to think.
Yates: Tripped on the threshold of immortality.
Police: Look, seriously. how fast did you go really? I mean, is this a hoax
or what?
Yates: I told you. We never went over 175. It was the gas stops that killed
us. Now that I think about it, that’s a metaphor for life: every time you get up to speed, you’ve got to stop for gas. Ain’t life a #%!@?
LOL! Yep, that was Brock. Amazing that he made it to age 82.
I'm sure that he and Carroll arranged quite a greeting for Dan.
Sorry for the meandering story....
When I was a kid...(6-9 years) I followed my big brother around...he was/is 7 years older, my hero!
He had friends his age who lived nearby.
Those friends were ITALIAN, VERY ITALIAN.
Mom & Dad were born & raised In Italy and all the kids were born here in the US.
He was offered citizen sponsorship and employment as an electronic engineer for ‘Phillips electronics’ (I think) but he did okay, well enough to go home to Italy for a month every other year.
His brother owned the Alfa Romeao dealership in Bari, Italy...50 miles from the factory...some stories were told.
Both brothers raced as young men, they were all about the cars.
Every other year he would bring home to San Jose from Italy 2 cars in a container.
Wonderful cars, magical cars...when I was a little kid hanging out with big brother.
The ‘265 California Special’ he brought in and I drooled over recently sold for 9 million.
I remember at age 6-7 being hauled around on Vespa scooters by those Italian kids.
Most memorable moment...”If your pants have rivets I will beat you”...He died last year sadly, Danial Gentilie was a work of art.
Romeo is the correct spelling.
“Romeo is the correct spelling.”
I can’t afford a real one so it does not matter.
I drove my brothers 1967 Alfa spider to my high school senior prom in Palo Alto, California in 1977.
Back then grabbing a boob is like ‘dangerous group bestiality sex’ now.
I did own an Alfa for a couple of years, 85 spider, but it was beaten too badly so I sold it.
Pathetic that Toyota trucks are all I will pay for now.
Ha, I wasn’t trying to be a spelling nazi, just that I am an Alfa addict, Alfisi, and do own one.
My brother bought a 67 Alfa Zagatto from the Italian neighbor.
It was built on a Montral chassis and only one of 11 built that year.
He kept it for almost 20 years and sold it back to that same Italian guy, it was his ‘company car’.
5 months later the ‘barn’ burned down killing the 67 spider and 8,000 square feet of stuff including my home.
1989, 3:05 Am pacific time in Santa Clara County, east foothills.
I lost 8 Kayaks, 35+ fishing rods....a few longrifles and around 5,000 books.
All my pistols were okay.
That was a long day.
Sorry to hear you lost all that, that really sucks. My Alfa is a current model and it really is a little beast. Funny thing is, that while its a current model, it’s much like driving a late 80’s super car. Totally manual steering, loud as hell, can’t hear the radio, have a turbo charger right behind my head, making 241/2 lbs of boost, which you hear sucking in, then the blow valve going off when you let off the gas. No mufflers on the car, the thing rips, a lot of fun.
I met Dan Gurney and spoke to him a couple of times (long after he’d retired from racing). I ran in to him at a drivers’ reception during an F1 race weekend a number of years ago and we discussed his “Gator” motorcycle concept at length.
He was not only an amazing and versatile driver, he was an amazing and versatile designer/engineer as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.