All-American Racer
All-American Racer
A short walk down Dan Gurney’s hall of fame
IN THE NONDEscript complex of buildings that makes up Dan Gurney’s All American Racers in Santa Ana, California, is the single coolest hallway in the motor-head universe.
On the walls of this corridor that leads from reception to the shop where the Alligator and every AAR racecar has been made since 1964, are photographs from Gurney’s racing and riding career, glimpses of his incredible life, the amazing places, famous people and wonderful machines.
So rather than having me tell you he was born on Long Island in 1931 and take it from there, let’s just take a walk down the hall with Dan.
“This is the famous Le Mans start,” says Gurney, pointing to a picture of a bunch of helmeted racers running across the track to their waiting cars. “I’m right here. Looks like it’s '66, because I’m on pole.” And there he is, first in line, sprinting toward his Ford GT40. That year the car broke, but he won with A.J. Foyt in 1967. That same year, he won the Belgian Grand Prix in one of his own Eagles.
“This is the car that really got me noticed,” he says, pointing to a photo of a 4.9-liter Ferrari he was racing at Pomona, circa 1957. By ’59 he wasn’t just driving a Ferrari, he was driving for Ferrari.
Here’s a picture of Mario Andretti.
“We were enemies at the time, but we’re friends now.
In fact, he asked me to do the foreword for his book.” Gurney and Andretti are the only drivers who have won in the four major autoracing categories: F-l, Indy, sports cars and NASCAR. Gurney did it first.
“Juan Manuel Fangio, the old man,” says Gurney about a 1978 color print of him and Fangio on a podium after a Long Beach GP vintage race. “Tom Wheatcroft, who owns Donington Park, he had me in a 1959 BRM, and Fangio had a 1955 Mercedes. Here I am right behind this fantastic five-time
world champion. He kind of left a little bit open in this uphill comer, so I squirted in there, passed him, and ended up winning. It wasn’t a big race or anything, but he sent me a message afterward that said, ‘What’s the idea of picking on an old man that way?!’
It was the perfect thing to say.”
Just a few frames away: “There’s Juan Manuel Fangio II. He was a lot like his uncle, a tremendous driver. He and P.J. Jones drove our very successful GTP Toyota. We won the last 17 races we entered with that car.”
That IMSA prototype’s turbocharged 2.1-liter engine was said to have made as much as 900 horsepower, but was choked down to “about 710” by the end of 1993, as the sanctioning body kept making its intake restrictor plate ever smaller. Gumey was asked at that time what he thought of this, and his reply was something to the effect of, “How would you like to breathe through a hole the size of a hummingbird’s rectum?” AAR engine-man Drino Miller built those powerplants, and he is also responsible for the ’Gator’s modified Honda Single.
“Here we are in the middle of the front row at Indy in 1980, and that’s a stock-block Chevrolet engine,” he says proudly.
“They banned us later!”
Gumey Eagles were for many years a strong presence in the Indianapolis 500, both in the hands of AAR drivers, and as “customer” cars.
It was easy to see why, as he showed me a picture from the now-defunct Ontario Motor Speedway:
“These were the first two cars to have a 200-mph lap speed on an oval, any-
where.” The cars he pointed to had his name on them.
There’s a photo with Richard Nixon (whose name appeared on an Eagle at Indy) and one in which Gumey is shaking hands with Spiro T. Agnew, Nixon’s veep. In another, Wilt Chamberlain towers over Gumey, who himself is not a small man. “He really loved cars,” Gumey says.
Through all the car stuff, there were always motorcycles and motorcycle people. A framed Montesa ad from a 1965 Cycle World shows a helmetless Gumey jumping a 250cc Scrambler. He’s wearing wingtips! “I was involved with Kim Kimball, the importer for Montesa. He asked me to put money in, which of course I lost, but we had good times.
One of the early guys we gave a ride to was Kenny Roberts.”
Down the hall, there’s a photo from around 1980 of Gumey and Roberts and others in the desert play riding, and another of Eddie Lawson, flicked and flying on a prototype ’Gator at the Streets of Willow.
His enthusiasm for motorcycles began early, explains Gumey. “When I was a kid, if I had some excuse to stay home from school, I’d have the Harley and the Indian catalog and I’d be reading and dreaming. When I was 15,1 came really close to getting permission from my folks to buy a Royal Enfield 350cc Single, but I didn’t get to. I’ve been getting even with them ever since!”
Gumey got a Whizzer in ’47, then got his first “real” bike in 1955, a Triumph 650.
A couple of years later, he says he tried his hand at motorcycle racing, reminded of this by a picture of friend Bud Ekins:
“I only actually raced twice, in the Big Bear Run,” Gumey remembers. “The first time was on a Matchless, but sand overcame the air-cleaner and stuck the slide open. That was the end of it.
The second one, probably in ’58,1 rode a 650 Triumph with Ekins pipes on it, a Firestone rear recap with big knobbies, and I ended up finishing 20th overall. I was rider 640, so there were plenty of guys to pass. I was so proud you’d have thought I won it. But I was over an hour behind Ekins, who actually won.”
Gumey then points to a picture of himself, sitting in a racecar with a full-face helmet. “That was important. I was the first guy at Indy and in Formula One to wear one of those. That
was a result of seeing the bike guys at Ascot using them. We used to use rags on our faces. A rag won’t stop a rock!”
The motorcycle theme continued: “There’s AÍ Gunter. When Carroll Shelby and I started All American Racers, the first dyno we put together was conceived by Al. He was part of the BSA Wrecking Crew racing Gold Stars all the time. And I helped Joe Leonard pass his driver’s test at Indy so he could drive a car for us there.” Leonard is the only man to win U.S. national championships on two wheels and four. There’s Leonard again: “We built a dirt-tracker for Joe in the early ’70s,” Gumey remembers. “We had the only Yamaha the Harley guys were worried about. It was running about 90 horsepower from around 700cc.”
He talks about his friendships with Mike Hailwood and John Surtees, watching the Isle of Man with Geoff Duke. “Here’s Ed Kretz Jr. and Sr. We were good friends, too. I used to watch Ed Sr. race at a track called Box Springs Grade after we moved to Riverside in 1948. There’s Corky Keener, and that’s Chuck.” As in ex-racer Palmgren, who now runs the shop at AAR.
There were many more photos, more memories, for this was but a small percentage of Gurney’s hallway, which in turn is itself only a small percentage of Gurney’s experiences and accomplishments. Add to it all now, “motorcycle manufacturer.” And don’t expect the Alligator to be the last you hear from Dan Gumey and AAR. Mark Hoyer
