MONTEREY, California — Dan Gurney drove his first race 55 years ago, and as a sort of lifetime achievement award, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion will celebrate Gurney's life, cars and legend August 12-15 at Mazda Raceway in Laguna Seca. Gurney will be on hand alongside many of his racecars.
The event, "Dan Gurney: The Cars He Built, The Cars He Drove" will be headlined by a display of Gurney Eagle racers, including Formula 1, Indy cars, IMSA GTP prototypes, Can-Am cars and Plymouth Barracuda Trans-Am cars.
Gurney drove in the very first professional race at Laguna Seca, the Pacific Grand Prix in 1960. He also competed at Can-Am Monterey Grand Prix races in the late 1960s.
He was named the first Legend of Laguna in 2007 and is also an inductee in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, the Sebring International Raceway Hall of Fame and the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame.
His racing career in the larger world is well known and includes venues such as Daytona, Sebring, Le Mans, the Nürburgring 1,000-km race and the Targa Florio, not to mention Formula 1 and NASCAR.
Gurney's All American Racers company, founded in 1965, designed and built 157 Eagle racing cars from 1965-2000, some of which competed and won at Monterey. It's the only U.S. constructor to have designed and built winning racing cars for sports-car, Indianapolis 500 and Formula 1 Grand Prix racing.
Gurney will be talking with the public and signing autographs on Saturday, August 14.
Inside Line says: A living, breathing legend should be almost as fun to see up close as some of his racecars. — Laura Sky Brown, Correspondent
Add A Comment »
driver33 says:
04:15 PM, 02/19/2010
I have always thought the Gurney/Weslake Titanium Eagle V-12 was the most beautiful race car ever.