The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

going to beat the factory guys. The pressure was on and Grant’s first race with his new ride was the 20th Annual Sports Car and Motorcycle races over Labor Day Weekend, 1963, in Santa Barbara. Grant won the preliminary race plus the feature A-Production race, that day beating Billy Kraus, Dick Guldstrand and other West Coast Corvette luminaries. In testament to the unusual “no harm-no foul” arrangement Grant had worked out with Coventry Motors, Carroll Shelby drove up to Santa Barbara by himself to watch Grant run. The next race was on September 15, 1963 at Candlestick Park with Grant again showing the Corvettes how to win a race. Which brings us to Grant’s first and only meeting with the factory team, the 1-Hour GT sports car race on Oc- tober 13, 1963 as part of the L.A. Times Grand Prix weekend at River- side. Grant had never run at Riverside before practice for this race and even that was interrupted with last minute fixes that were required on CSX2128. Nonetheless, Grant qualified the car 4th on the 3-2 grid; the front row being occupied by Bob Bondurant (CSX2137) on the pole, Dan Gurney (CSX2127) in the center and Lew Spencer (CSX2136) on the outside, ahead of Richie Ginther in a Ferrari GTO on the outside and Grant (CSX2128) on the inside of the second row. Grant’s position on the second row gave him a good chance at the hole-shot for Gurney’s tail on the start, knowing Riverside was Gurney’s home track. As the field roared off Grant slipped into second place with Bondurant on his tail; a situation which Bondo en- dured until Turn 6 when a “gentle” tap of frustration spun the upstart Grant off the track and into last place behind the entire field. The latter got himself straightened out and as the red mist enveloped him, he roared off to save his dream – eventually marching through the entire field to finish in second place, just behind Bondo. Grant’s fury was made all the worse when Bondo blew a tire on the cool-off lap, indicating Allen Grant may well have won that race if he not been shunted off the track, or if it had been one lap longer. He came into the pits spoiling for a fight, waiting for Bondo to come in, when his crew (his brother, his dad and George Lucas) let him know that he might have finished sec- ond, but the race announcer had dubbed him the hero of the race for his charge through the field; sometimes taking 2 seconds a lap out of the lead- ers. Shelby was there to watch and told the press “ Allen Grant is the most promising American driver since Dan Gurney. ” High praise, indeed. In retro- spect, and not to take away from his significant driving skill, Grant to this day wonders why he was allowed to run a racing windscreen in that race against the factory Cobras, which were sporting full windshields which created a lot more drag for those cars. There was one more race weekend for Coventry Motors on October 19-20, 1963 at Laguna Seca. It produced an- other win for Grant in the A-Produc- tion race, a win again in the FIA GT race, followed by a solid 7th O2L/11th OA in the Pacific Grand Prix, finishing ahead of Graham Hill, Lloyd Ruby, Jim Clark, Roger Penske and host of other big names. Then reality reared its ugly head, and Allen Grant received his draft no- tice. Rather than going in for two years, Grant joined the Army Reserve in November 1963 for six months of active duty followed by five and a half years of one weekend a month and two weeks each summer duty. With their very successful driver out of action, Coventry Motors ultimately traded CSX2128 back to Shelby American for two demonstrators. To his credit, Shelby kept an office job open for Grant in 1964, but the race season was well underway by the time he came off active duty in May, so Grant found a ride in Tommy Fried- kin’s Cheetah, with mixed results – at best. The car was unruly, ill-handling and undeveloped and even someone with Allen Grant’s skill had trouble taming it. There were a couple of wins, The SHELBY AMERICAN Summer 2022 60