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Dan Gurney

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The Resume

    (April 13, 1931-January 14, 2018)
    Born in Port Jefferson, New York
    87 Formula One starts, 4 wins
    16 NASCAR starts, 5 wins
    28 Indy Car starts, 7 wins
    With A.J. Foyt, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans (1967)
    With Brock Yates, won the first Cannonball Run (1971)
    Owner and CEO of All American Racers (1970-2011)
    Founding member of Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART; 1979)
    Inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (1990) and Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (1991)

Why he might be annoying:

    His car crashed during the 1960 Dutch Grand Prix, killing a spectator.
    He was unusually tall for a race car driver (6'4), which made it difficult for him to fit into the cars.
    He said about racing, 'That's the essence of this, isn't it? To go as fast as possible without getting killed.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He served in the Army as an artillery mechanic during the Korean War.
    He was the first of three drivers (followed by Mario Andretti and Juan Pablo Montoya) to win races in sports cars, Formula One, NASCAR, and Indy Car.
    He was the first American to win a Formula One race in a car of his own design.
    After winning a Le Mans, he celebrated by spraying champagne, starting a sports tradition.
    He invented the Gurney flap, a piece of sheet metal fixed at a right angle to the rear spoiler, which increased downforce, allowing a car to negotiate turns at higher speeds, with a minimal increase in drag (1971).
    During the filming of 'Grand Prix' (1966), star James Garner noted, 'If there was ever a discussion about how do I look or act or, hell, just stand there and look the part, the solution was simple: we'd look at Dan Gurney and say, 'Okay, there's the answer,' and that's what I would do.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 35 Votes: 51.43% Annoying