RIP - Dan Gurney Options

[Cracker]

I don't know if this has been posted yet but another racing legend has departed. Dan Gurney was an odd-ball race car driver being 6'4" tall...he must have been a bit crazy too (check out the picture of him "launching a speedster sans helmet in 1956!

Mr. Gurney...Rest in peace.

Cracker

An except below from an article by Ryan McGee:

"How cool was Dan Gurney?

You might already know the statistical part of his racing life. The first man to stand atop the podium in the world's four major racing classifications: Formula One, IndyCar, Sports Cars and NASCAR. The winner of 51 races in all, earning 98 trips to the podium during a behind-the-wheel career that spanned 312 events in 20 counties. In 1967 he had what might have very well been the greatest three-week span for any man to ever hold a steering wheel, when he started second in the Indianapolis 500; won the 24 Hours of Le Mans while co-driving with A.J. Foyt, the man who'd just beaten him at Indy; and then traveled north to win the F1 Belgian Grand Prix in a car of his own construction, still the only American to do so."




Porsche 908 (GRP F1) - What roll bar??? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/screwy.gif)

[davesprinkle]

In the mid-90s, I was riding my cafe'd Honda 400 (see motorcycle pics thread) on Ortega Hwy in southern california. I pull up at a roadside cafe and park in the lot next to half a dozen weird low-rider bikes. Clearly custom-built, but strange. Seats six inches above the ground. Unconventional. You might even call them ugly.

I go in and get a coke and a sandwich. I come out and some tall guy is looking at my 400. I recognize Dan Gurney. He and I talk about the bike. He points at the front brake and seems impressed. I'm fucking thrilled about his comments.

Then he offers me a ride on one of those strange bikes. He says it's an Alligator. This one is powered by a Yamaha single. No way I'm gonna turn this down.

I get on the bike and rail through the Ortega canyon section. Tight, tight, tight. The bike handles surprisingly well, once I got used to the feet-forward riding position. I go about five miles and turn around.

Back at the cafe, Dan keeps pressing me about how it worked. "Did you really get on it?" he wants to know. I defer answering his question. "Yeah, yeah, I got on it" I say, but he insists, "Did you really work it?" Finally, I say, "Dan, I had it into the limiter in three gears."

Dan smiled. That's what he wanted to hear.

I'm certain I didn't ride that bike to its potential. I'm certain there are other riders who could have ridden that thing better than me. But Dan didn't care. He was a hot-rodder, a gear-head, a racer, a gregarious cool guy with a big heart. He handed the keys to his custom bike to a stranger and his only request was that it be flogged to its limit.

Dan, thanks. I'll miss you.