All American Legends
A recent guided tour of the Phoenix Art Museum’s Legends of Speed exhibit – conducted by friend and legendary racer Lyn St. James – introduced me to the amazing career of Dan Gurney. A successful racer who became both a car constructor and team owner, Gurney competed at the highest level in Formula One, NASCAR, IndyCar, Can-Am and the Trans-Am Series. On display at the exhibition was his famous Eagle Gurney-Weslake V12 that won the 1967 Grand Prix of Belgium. It was and remains the first and only time that an American citizen built and raced a car of his own construction and put it into the winner’s circle of a World Championship F1 race. As an aside, many consider the Gurney Eagle to be the most beautiful race car of all time. I have to agree. After a crash killed a spectator at the 1960 Dutch Grand Prix, Gurney became distrustful of engineers, and later constructed his own cars to better control his level of risk. He was quick to adopt the latest tools in s...