American Racer Dan Gurney Dies At Age 86

Dan Gurney, Formula 1 driver, constructor, and motorcyclist has died of pneumonia after a lifetime of intense and productive motorsports activity. I spoke with Gurney on the phone last week, hearing his enthusiasm for the upcoming tests of his latest project, a vibrationless large-displacement twin with dual contra-rotating crankshafts meant for motorcycle and other use.

Gurney in high school revealed the wide-ranging interests and enthusiasms that would drive his life by building and racing cars of his own. Ascending through the ranks of drivers, he came to the attention of New York City Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti Sr., who got him an “audition for the big time.” He would spend 10 years in the first rank, retiring in 1970.

He was always much more than a driver, and it is my thought that he asked himself, "What commandment says the finest racing machines must always originate abroad? Why can't they be the work of people named Smith, or Jones, or Gurney?" His company, All American Racers, was the answer. Surrounding himself with hard-working and creative people, Gurney became the second F1 driver ever to win a Grand Prix in a car of his own creation.

Feast your eyes on the fine details of his career in the many eulogies now appearing in the news. Those who have visited his office remember that it is crowded with photos and engine and chassis parts. Is that a cylinder from a sleeve-valve Centaurus aircraft engine? This was a life lived at the center of motorsports.

Motorcyclists venerate Dan Gurney especially for his years of development of a series of feet-first motorcycles he called “Alligator,” designs that grew straight from his above-average height and difficulty fitting onto ordinary motorcycles. His current “moment-canceling” twin was intended to power the next of these unusual machines. How did it come into being? Because the previous prototype engine, a V-twin, offended his sense of the possible by its vibration. “Let’s do another one,” he said.

When Yvon Duhamel's Kawasaki mechanic Steve Whitelock wondered if the new Champ Car practice of drilling brake discs could help his rider, Gurney and his men pitched in to send him home with a properly laid-out and executed hole pattern. Drilled discs on bikes were suddenly to be seen everywhere.

During the era when Yamaha hosted Monterey Bay Aquarium parties on Laguna Seca MotoGP weekends (2005–'08), you might see Gurney and his men arrive on the various marques of Alligator. In conversation, one history-laden anecdote followed another in the constant swirl of famous faces to be seen there. Southern California riders encountered him and his latest Alligator often on the most demanding stretches of highway.

Gurney was excited at the preliminary airflow results from his new engine and filled with the pleasure of anticipation of firing tests to follow. We don’t live forever, but Dan Gurney showed that we can ignore that. Death may be universal, but the force of a life lived fully makes it incidental.