Shifting Gears

For four decades, the name Dan Gurney has been synonymous with all that has been right with racing in Southern California.

With his golden blond hair and his million-dollar smile--one that lights up a losing garage as easily as a victory celebration--the lanky kid from Riverside became the personification of success at all levels of his turbulent sport.

This weekend, 30 years after he won the first Indy car race at Riverside International Raceway, Gurney will be at the new California Speedway for the first Indy car race at the two-mile oval in Fontana.

Gurney, 66, still looks as if he could climb into the cockpit and drive at racing speed, but his Toyota-powered white, green and gold Castrol Reynards will be driven by Juan Fangio II, nephew of the five-time world Formula One champion of the same name, and PJ Jones, son of 1964 Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones.

The cars are not yet competitive in the high-tech world of the PPG CART World Series, but if Gurney’s record is any indicator, it is only a matter of time before Fangio and Jones work their way up to challenge Alex Zanardi, Jimmy Vasser, Michael Andretti and the other CART winners.

Gurney has been associated with Toyota since 1983, mostly with winning cars in the International Motor Sports Assn., but this is only the team’s second year in CART. The results have not met expectations, either from Gurney’s pair or the Arciero-Wells team of Max Papis and Hiro Matsushita.

“My guess is that the size and scope of the challenge was underestimated,” Gurney said. “I think [Toyota officials in Japan] realize this, but our effort is being handled by Toyota Motor Sales, in Torrance, and its subsidiary, TRD [Toyota Racing Development].”

Fangio’s best finishes this season have been 10th at Detroit and Road America; Jones’ best were 14th on three occasions.

“PJ and Juan are as good as any drivers in the whole series,” Gurney said. “We joke about it being character-building for them, but I know from experience it is excruciating for them. They’re both too good to be made to suffer the way they have been. They are the ones laying it on the line for everyone to see.”

Although the results have been disappointing, Gurney’s drivers revere their boss.

In one-word descriptions, Jones called Gurney “awesome.” Fangio said “amazing.”

Jones continued, “Dan is the best car owner I’ve ever driven for. He doesn’t expect more out of you than you expect of yourself. He’s pretty quiet and is more hands-off with his drivers, but when he sees something, he tells you. My dad taught me a lot, but having both of them is a great combination.”

Said Fangio, “Dan gives us room to grow, also room to try different things, but as you soon as you have a problem, he’s there to help. He is unique among racing people. The only one I would ever compare him with was my uncle.

“I don’t count what we are doing now as racing. I count it as a development phase. I have no doubt that Toyota will make it all the way to the top. It was the same in GTP. We had a painful experience in 1989, a little better in 1990 and then, suddenly, ‘Boom!’ it all came together and we couldn’t be stopped.”

The GTP Toyota Eagles, managed by Gurney and driven by Fangio and Jones, won 17 consecutive races in 1992 and 1993.

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From the day he left Riverside Junior College and decided to go racing, Gurney’s influence has been immense in every major racing development as driver, manager, designer, builder or car owner.

* In Sports Car Club of America competition, after a few years of street racing with fellow gearheads who gathered at the Hula Hut in El Monte and Rudy’s Drive-In in Riverside, Gurney finished fourth at Torrey Pines in 1955 in his first official race. He drove a Triumph TR-2 on the road course, a performance that eventually led to his driving a Ferrari in Formula One and an 11-year Grand Prix career.

* At Riverside, he won the track’s first Indy car race in 1967 in his own Olsonite Eagle. Before that, he had won four NASCAR Grand National (now Winston Cup) races at Riverside, a feat that former Riverside track president Les Richter says, “put Riverside on the racing map.”

That 1967 Rex Mays 300, recalls Gurney, was significant in historical perspective because it marked the first serious corporate involvement in motor racing.

“We had just landed sponsorship from Olsonite for our All-American Racers car and [public relations advisor] Jim Chapman put up a hospitality tent at Turn 7 at Riverside and invited a bunch of Olsonite customers to the race,” Gurney remembered.

“Chapman really put on the dog for them and then we put on a storybook finish. I had been concerned the car couldn’t go 300 miles on a road course, so I was conserving the engine early in the race. I had a flat tire about 20 laps from the finish and when I got back on the track, I had to average 1.5 seconds faster a lap than Bobby Unser, so it was too late to baby the car.

“I went all out chasing Bobby and with a lap to go, I caught him and took the lead. The people in Chapman’s tent went crazy. It made a great fan of Ozzie Olson and went a long way to solidifying my Olsonite sponsorship for the next seven years.”

Today, with corporate tents and hospitality areas commonplace at tracks, it is difficult to recall days when there were none, but the Olsonite experiment was four years before R.J. Reynolds introduced corporate activity into NASCAR with its Winston Cup involvement.

“So much has changed since those days,” Gurney said. “There were no major manufacturers involved the way they are today. Mostly, it was rich car owners racing against each other. Now, it’s big business, with sponsors looking at the bottom line for what they can get out of it. TV has changed it more than anything, the way it’s changed all the other sports. Motorsports has lagged behind, but it’s catching up. Especially NASCAR.”

That victory at Riverside was also noteworthy because it made Gurney the first driver to have won a race in Formula One, stock cars, sports cars and Indianapolis cars.

Earlier in 1967, he had won the Grand Prix of Belgium in his AAR Eagle and, eight days later, teamed with A.J. Foyt to win the 24 Hours of LeMans. And he won four stock car races at Riverside from 1963 to 1966.

“We built the Grand Prix and the Indy car at our shop in Santa Ana,” Gurney said. “Both of them were AAR Eagles with Gurney-Weslake heads. John Miller was our engine man and he put them together.”

* At Ontario Motor Speedway, Bobby Unser drove an Olsonite Eagle built and owned by Gurney to victory in the 1974 California 500. Four other Eagles also won on the short-lived Ontario oval.

It was at Ontario, too, that one of Gurney’s Eagles, driven by Jerry Grant, registered the first 200-mph lap in Indy car history, a 201.414 while qualifying for the 1972 California 500. In another case of Gurney’s good-luck, bad-luck fortunes, Grant’s car refused to start the next day and never made the pace lap.

* Gurney was one of the original founders, with Chris Pook, of the Long Beach Grand Prix, which has become the world’s most successful street race. He is still on the board of directors of the Grand Prix Assn.

In one of the most memorable events since Long Beach hosted its first Formula One race in 1976, Gurney drove a 1959 BRM against the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio in a 1955 Mercedes-Benz in an exhibition race.

“I was in such awe of ‘the Maestro’ that even though I was in a much faster car, I was almost embarrassed to pass him,” Gurney said. “I thought maybe I shouldn’t do it, but I finally did.”

* At California Speedway in Fontana this weekend, besides having his own two cars in the Marlboro 500, Gurney will be grand marshal.

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Until 1988, Gurney did all of the engine work on his cars in his AAR shop, a list of engines that included Ford, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Drake Offy, Coventry Climax, Ford Cosworth and, after he had joined Toyota, the GTU and GTO cars that won IMSA sports car championships.

When AAR undertook developing a GTP car, which Fangio and Jones drove so successfully, the engine work was done by TRD. In keeping with the leasing program initiated by CART engine builders--Ford Cosworth, Ilmor Mercedes and Honda--the Toyota RV8B that Gurney and Arciero-Wells use in their Reynards must not be worked on--even looked at--but must be returned to TRD after each test or race.

The leasing program was devised by the manufacturers to protect the secrets sealed inside the engines.

“Personally, I prefer to work on my own engines,” Gurney said wistfully. “I enjoyed that part of putting a car together. We did that with our earlier Toyota cars and were very successful and I would like to do it again. There is a certain element of mystery to designing, building and working on engines.

“From a safety viewpoint, [the new system] is probably an improvement. Years ago, when each team did its own engine work, there were some poorly put-together engines that were not safe. This way, you can be pretty sure all the engines are properly prepared. . . . But it has put a lot of American engine builders out of business.”

Toyota’s plans call for a new engine for next season, with a busy testing program beginning in November.

“After three new designs since the program began, this will mark the first time that we’ve really been able to develop an engine,” said John Koenig, vice president of motorsports for Toyota Motor Sales USA, which oversees TRD.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to win races right away next season, but I think we’ll be more competitive than we have been. The PPG Cup championship is Toyota’s No. 1 priority in motorsports worldwide.”

And Gurney’s too.