It’s Not Main Event, but Gurney Family Still Has Drive

A founder of Championship Auto Racing Teams, Dan Gurney co-founded the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in 1974.

This year will be different for the patriarch of All American Racers.

This year, the Santa Ana race shop owner won’t be in Sunday’s main event.

But even though Gurney couldn’t secure sponsorship for a CART Champ Car team for the 2000 season, he will be connected to a race this weekend--the Toyota Atlantic Series on Saturday.

His youngest son, Alex, 25, will be driving, and an older son, Justin, 28, plays a pivotal role.

“Justin is the team manager and Kenny Anderson is the race engineer, and it’s really their team. I’m taking a very low profile in it,” said Gurney, who turned 69 on Thursday. “I’m proud of the progress they’re making. I’ve always felt Alley had enormous potential, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops this weekend.

“If you look at Atlantics or Indy Lights, it’s the crucial stepping stone for a lot of young drivers.”

Everyone at Gurney’s Santa Ana race shop is hoping Alex has better luck than he did in the two-race Grand Prix of Miami. Though he qualified fourth and eighth, contact with another car and an electrical problem dropped him to 24th and 22nd among 24 drivers.

Alex would like to make amends.

“We feel we can turn it around,” he said. “We had a test in Sebring [Fla.] and Buttonwillow [Calif.] that went really well; we were the fastest of the group that was there both times. We feel we have the bugs out and we’re ready to go.

“Long Beach is always the big week in Atlantics. I’ve been here every year since I can remember, and it’s what started the fire in me. To be racing here is awesome.”

Long Beach provided Alex with his Atlantic debut last season for Team Green, but contact with another car dropped him to 25th. He finished 12th in the series.

The No. 48 Swift chassis is painted similarly to the 1967 Formula 1 Eagle driven by Dan when he won the Grand Prix of Belgium.

Wearing the All American Racers colors also brings about a different set of pressures for the son.

“I’ve never driven for my dad--it’s definitely something special for everybody,” Alex said. “Also, I know that everything going on in the team is based around me, and we have one goal, and the only goal is winning. There’s nothing else clouding the issue.”

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Along with Gurney, the Atlantic race will have a considerable Orange County flavor to it.

PPI Motorsports, the Rancho Santa Margarita-based team of Cal Wells III, will have two entries, Andrew Bordin and new Newport Beach resident Dan Wheldon. Also competing will be Rocky Moran of Coto de Caza.

In the first race of the season, Wheldon won, Moran finished fourth and Bordin took sixth.

The next day, Wheldon was passed on the last lap and finished second to Phoenix driver Buddy Rice, while Moran took third and Bordin fourth.

Moran made his pass of Bordin on the last of 50 laps.

INDY LIGHTS

Townsend Bell of Costa Mesa makes his Dayton Indy Lights Championship debut on Sunday, before the main event.

“Being my first race, a big priority is just finishing,” said Bell, 24, “but as competitive as it is, it doesn’t benefit me to hold back.”

Bell, with Doricott Racing, couldn’t be with a better team. Doricott ran a three-car team for the first time in 1999 and took the top three spots in last season’s championship.

TRANS-AM SERIES

Among the entries in the BFGoodrich Trans-Am Series are Yorba Linda’s Stu Hayner, Newport Beach’s Peter Shea and Huntington Beach’s Mike Davis. They will race after the main event on Sunday.

Hayner, racing the full series for the first time, had a horrible experience last year, colliding with Chris Neville on the first lap.

“Usually,” Hayner said, “I make it past Turn 1.”

KROSNOFF WINNER

Xijia Chen of Cupertino received the fourth annual Jeff Krosnoff Scholarship on Wednesday from Tracy Krosnoff, the late driver’s wife. The $10,000 award is given in honor of the driver killed in a 1996 accident in Toronto while driving for Wells’ race team.

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