The Shelby American (Fall 2021)

•41 starts in Sports Car World Cham- pionship races; 6 poles, 10 wins, in- cluding 5 OA and 5 Class wins for Ferrari, Maserati, Lotus, Shelby Cobra, Ford GT40 MK IV and Porsche. •After his OA win at LeMans in 1967, he initiated the now ubiquitous prac- tice of spraying the crowd with cham- pagne. •30 starts in Indy cars, 10 poles, 7 wins, 16 podiums. Second at Indi- anapolis in 1968 and 1969. •24 starts in Can-Am, 5 poles, 3 wins. •64 starts in Sports Car events earlier in his career, 5 poles, 13 wins OA and 9 Class wins for Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari and Lotus. •1958 USAC National Road Racing Champion. •One of two drivers, the other being Mario Andretti, to win in four major racing categories: Formula One, Indy, Sports and Stock cars. Upon retiring from active racing in 1970 Gurney bought out Carroll Shelby and became sole owner of All American Racers, a company they founded in 1965 with backing from Goodyear. Phil Remington soon joined AAR and the two “shade tree” engi- neers went on to further greatness. Between 1965 and 2012 AAR built 158 racing cars, employed 66 drivers, gath- ered 77 victories including the Indy 500 (1975), 83 pole positions and 8 Manufacturers Championship titles. Twenty one of the thirty three cars on the grid at the 1973 Indy 500 were AAR Eagles. AAR paired with Toyota to go GTP racing and in a span from 1992 to 1993 gathered 17 victories in a row; a never-repeated win streak. The company went on to design and patent a radical motorcycle called the Alligator and it more recently has been performing aerospace work for our military. Gurney’s son Justin has run the company since 2011. There was some legendary fun along the way as well. Gurney told the story about driving his family up to Mammoth Mountain for a ski trip when a couple in a BMW M5 roared by. The old racer woke up and chased the big BMW down …. in a Toyota minivan. He added that Toyota mini vans could be a kick to drive if you kept the weight down and put on a de- cent wheel and tire package. One could imagine a farm tractor would be a kick to drive if Dan Gurney was be- hind the wheel. Most legendary of all the fun was the second Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash in 1971, which saw Gurney and Brock Yates cover the distance between the Red Ball Garage in New York City and the Portofino Inn at Redondo Beach California in 35 hours and 54 minutes. The car was a dead-stock Ferrari Day- tona borrowed from a dealer in Philadelphia. They were 53 minutes ahead of the second place finisher, a Chevrolet Sportsman van entered by the Polish Racing Drivers of America, which had been set up by Tony Adamowicz, Oscar Kovaleski and Brad Niemcek to run the distance without stopping. Those guys left New York at 12:11AM on November 15, 1971 (they had demanded the Pole Po- sition) with 298 gallons of gas on board but had to stop in Albuquerque for an additional 78 gallons due to a mileage miscalculation. Four of the eight teams received 12 tickets along the way, including Gurney who was clocked in Arizona at 135 mph in a 70 mph zone. At one point in Arizona, Gurney wondered how fast the Ferrari would go. He discovered it would do 174 mph. After the event he was quoted in a Los Angeles newspaper as saying “ At no time did we exceed 175 mph. ” Dan Gurney ran out of road in Jan- uary 2018 at 86 years old. (January 23, 1935 – August 12, 2012) Grant grew up in the Seattle area and began his racing career on dirt in a ‘40 Ford Coupe and ‘32 Ford roadster. The regional attention caught the eye of Dick Hahn, a Yakima based car dealer who hired Grant to drive a ’59 Ferrari TR Hahn had just bought (for $7,000) from Jack Nethercutt in Southern Cal- ifornia. Grant went on to win the first two Rose Cup races at Portland Inter- national Raceway in that car in 1961 and 1962. Grant’s first ventures out of the northwest were to the Riverside 200 in 1960 (DNQ) and 1961 (14th OA), that day beating Sterling Moss, George Follmer, Lew Spencer, Chuck Daigh, Roger Ward andWalt Hansgen, among others. March 1963 found Grant paired with Pat Pigott (of the Kenworth and Peterbuilt Pigotts) in a Corvette at Sebring (DNF). Along the way in 1963 Grant picked up a Lotus 19 and installed a Buick engine which would appear to be the catalyst for his relationship with Dan Gurney, who was then driving a Lotus 19 with a Shelby 289 engine. The spring of 1964 found Grant at Daytona and Sebring in a Nickey Chevrolet sponsored Corvette, finishing 22nd and 16th OA, 1st GT+5.0 respectively. The Lotus 19 connection paid off when Gurney called Grant in 1964 with an invita- tion to join Dan Gurney Racing (the precursor to All American Racers) driving for Ford in the US and Europe. The two became life-long friends and Gurney often spoke about Grant’s nat- ural talent and his willingness to let Gurney set the car up the way he wanted (much the same as Lloyd Ruby was happy to let Ken Miles set up their car). Their collaboration began at the 1964 Targa Florio where Gurney and Grant nursed their car (CSX2323) home to 8th OA, 1st GT+3.0; the only Shelby to finish the race. Grant ran his own Lotus 19 for the rest of 1964 with some success. 1965 dawned for the pair at the 2000KM Daytona where they shared Gurney’s ultra- light Lotus 19, now sporting a 325 cu. in. 420-horse experimental engine. Gurney and Grant took the car to a several lap lead by the eight hour mark when the engine gave way. But the damage had been done, the two Ferraris had broken, and the Ford GT40s took 1st and 3rd OA (Miles/ Ruby in GT103 and Ginther/Bon- durant in GT104, respectively) sand- wiching the Daytona Coupe of Hal Keck and Jo Schlesser (CSX2299). Shelby’s race prep and strategy had worked perfectly, and it was de- cided to do it again at Sebring. But events conspired against a repeat; Jim Hall’s Chaparrals were allowed into The SHELBY AMERICAN Fall 2021 70 Jerry Grant