Gurney Turns His Design Skills to Motorcycles
Dan Gurney made a career of building and driving race cars, but on Wednesday he unveiled his pet project at the Petersen Automotive Museum, the Limited Edition Grand Prix Alligator motorcycle.
Instead of sitting on top of the motorcycle, the rider sits inside its elongated design, providing a lower center of gravity and greater handling.
It also stops on a dime.
“We’ll see how much of a niche we have carved out, if any,” said Gurney, who turned 71 on April 13. “If the response is excellent, the next step will be to get some investment partners and go to the next threshold, which we haven’t defined yet. I’ve carried this thing [to this point], now we’ll see what it stirs up.”
Gurney is producing 36 Alligators--30 of them for sale at $35,000--out of his All American Racers shop in Santa Ana. Blue with a white racing stripe, the carbon fiber Alligator weighs 320 pounds and is coated with the same paint used on the No. 36 Eagle Formula One car that Gurney raced in 1967.
Actor Perry King was the first of about a dozen people who have bought an Alligator.
“I’ve got 21 motorcycles, and this is going to be the one I ride all the time,” King said. “It makes you feel like you’re in a Formula car, an open-wheel car but on two wheels.”
That isn’t surprising. Gurney’s team applied many of the design principles of his race cars to the motorcycle, and he said his son, Justin, played an integral role in its appearance. It was a project that had been on the backburner until the demise of All American Racers’ CART team. With the extra time, the Alligator became a focal point.
Gurney’s passion for motorcycles began before he was a teenager when he read a book written in 1913, “The Speedwell Boys and their Motorcycle.”
“It’s exciting,” said Gurney, who estimated he had invested $10 million in the project. “One of the things that’s nice about it, unlike a racing car--which you cannot taste without being a racing driver--a street-legal motorcycle is something I can ride and our friends and customers can ride.
“That’s a huge difference. In many respects, there’s more freedom of design for something street legal than racing the way it has evolved.”
The result is a modified Honda four-stroke single, air-cooled, fuel-injected motorcycle with a top speed of about 140 mph.
Indy Racing
Indy Racing League team owner A.J. Foyt has hired Greg Ray to drive the No. 11 Chevy-powered Dallara for the rest of the season. Ray, signed through 2003, replaces Eliseo Salazar, who suffered a torn vertebral artery in a crash April 16 during testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Alta Loma driver Jaques Lazier will probably miss the rest of the IRL season after surgery Wednesday on a fractured vertebra, suffered in a crash with Tomas Scheckter in Sunday’s Firestone Indy 225 at Nazareth, Pa. He will wear a brace for eight to 12 weeks.
Supercross
Ricky Carmichael can practically assure himself of a second consecutive EA Sports Supercross title if he can stay on his 250cc Honda Saturday in Salt Lake City. With 306 points, Carmichael holds a 24-point lead over David Vuillemin of Corona with two races remaining, including the season-ender May 4 in Las Vegas. Vuillemin, on a Yamaha, can pick up 25 points with a victory.
With his victory last week in Texas, Hesperia’s Travis Preston moved into the 125cc Western Regional series lead with 130 points on his Honda, 10 more than 16-year-old phenom James Stewart of Haines City, Fla., riding for Kawasaki.
Perris
Ventura’s Cory Kruseman will be trying to win his third consecutive main event Saturday at Perris Auto Speedway when Vista Paint presents the NAPA Auto Parts/Auto Trader Magazines SCRA Sprint Cars.
Kruseman won 12 times last season at Perris, including six in a row during one stretch. The 2001 SCRA champion has 54 career victories, one less than all-time leader Rip Williams of Yorba Linda.
Garden Grove’s Tony Jones, who is second in the series, and third-place Richard Griffin of Silver City, N.M., a three-time champion, will be in the way of Kruseman; the three are separated by 23 points in the standings.
Irwindale
Irwindale Speedway will have one of its busiest nights of the year Saturday when it presents six classes of racing on its two oval surfaces of third- and half-mile distances.
The Jani-King Late Models compete in Round 2 of the Miller Lite Big 10 Challenge, along with the American Race Trucks, the Ultra Wheel Super Trucks, the Grand American Modifieds, the Ford Focus Midgets and the Russell USAC Triple Crown Pro Series Presented by Yokahama.
Passings
Jim Lewis, who published Hot Rod and Performance magazine and produced the Action Motorsports trade shows in the 1990s, died April 18. He was 55. A memorial is planned for Tuesday at Joe’s Garage, 36 Auto Center Dr., Tustin, at 6 p.m. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, 302 Ridgefield Court, Asheville, NC 28806 earmarked for the Cycle World Joe Parkhurst Education Fund.
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Former top fuel and funny car racer Leroy Goldstein, the first man to make a six-second run in a funny car, died April 24 of cancer. He was 62.
Last Laps
Winston West driver Eric Norris of Dana Point was the top qualifier Thursday for the Pontiac Widetrack Grand Prix 200 today at California Speedway.
Norris averaged 181.333 mph on the two-mile California Speedway oval, well ahead of Scott Lynch’s 179.686 and Austin Cameron’s 179.011. The race takes place Saturday at 9:30 a.m.
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Citing conflicts with other motorsports-related events, the 35th Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 has been moved forward two weeks, to Nov. 20-23. It will start in Ensenada and, for the first time since 1998, finish in La Paz.
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The inaugural Celebration of Speed and Splendor will have more than 200 vintage race and classic cars on display Sunday at the Pyramid at Long Beach State. It is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door for 13 and older. Proceeds benefit the American Cancer Society, Long Beach Cares, and the CSULB Departments of Radiation Therapy and Kinesiology. Details: (562) 985-2886.
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Shav Glick, who covers motor racing for The Times, had minor surgery this week and will miss this weekend’s races at Fontana.
