Dan Gurney's Eagle T1G-Weslake

In the Summer of 1967, American racing legends A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney were the biggest names in racing. In those days, international racing drivers were not shackled to as many contracts and sponsors as they are today; drivers like Foyt, Gurney and their contemporaries would run an Indy car one weekend, then a Sports car race the next, then a NASCAR or USAC stock car race the weekend after that, and then a Formula 1 Grand Prix at the end of the month. It was not uncommon for Foyt to run a stock car or dirt sprinter on Friday or Saturday night and then win the Indy car race on Sunday.

So it was in the Summer of '67. On Tuesday, May 31 (Memorial Day-the race was run on Memorial Day back then before the 3-day-weekend rule you have today that puts the holiday on the last Monday of May, and today the race is run the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend), both Foyt and Gurney competed in the 51st running of the Indianapolis 500. After dominating the race in his STP Turbine "Whooshmobile," Parnelli Jones had to retire when a small part broke, handing the lead to Foyt. "Super Tex" Foyt avoided a late-race accident and went on to win the race, his record-tying 3rd Indy 500 victory. (He would become the first man to win the storied race 4 times a decade later.) Gurney, in his own Wagner Lockheed Brake Fluid Eagle, was classified 21st. Both Foyt and Gurney were owner/drivers, rather than working for another team owner. Foyt and his father designed and built their own cars (known as Coyotes) and used Ford engines; Gurney's team, which he called All-American Racers or AAR, built cars for him and a few customers. AAR's race cars were known as Eagles.

12 days later, Gurney and Foyt, both of whom had ties to Ford Motor Company, were teamed together in the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in France, a test of skill, stamina, and will for the drivers, as well as a test of speed, efficiency, and reliability for the cars. Driving for fellow American racing legend Caroll Shelby (the guy who built the fabled 289 and 427 Cobras), Foyt and Gurney drove a red-orange Ford GT40 Mark IV sports car, which was powered by a thunderous 427 side-oiler big block V-8. They were two hard-chargers, basically expected by the racing pundits to be the team "rabbit"-the car that would set a blistering pace early on to wear the competition down until they broke, whereupon one of the other Ford GTs would cruise by to victory. Consquently, their car wasn't expected to win, or for that matter even last the full 24 hours. But Foyt and Gurney had other ideas. Not only did they set a blistering pace early on-they just kept on doing it....setting a blistering pace through the middle of the night, setting a blistering pace through the morning, setting a blistering pace past Noon....and went on to win! This was the first all-American team to win the race overall since the Deusenberg days, and Foyt became the first man to win both Indy and Le Mans....and he did it within the space of two weeks! Gurney, meanwhile, became one of the first, if not THE first, guys to spray champaigne from the winner's circle like a firehose....

The next week, while Foyt was back in the States, Gurney and his AAR team were in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium for the Belgian Grand Prix, held at the vast, daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Spa in those days, like the Nurburgring Nordschleife on the other side of the German border, was one of those old-school Grand Prix venues made up of closed-off public country roads, with long, LONG high-speed straights punctuated by corners ranging from the benign to the devious to the truly frightening. When you won at Spa, you proved you had legendary skill, and perhaps something that was in those days every bit as important: sheer bravery.

Gurney's car and engine were built almost entirely in-house by his own AAR team. The car was Chassis #104, the engine a Weslake V-12, which had been troublesome but powerful. And Spa was indeed a power circuit.

Dan's competition included Jimmy Clark, past World Champion and 1965 Indy winner, in another legendary car, Colin Chapman's green-and-gold Lotus 49/Cosworth; rising star Jackie Stewart in the H-16-powered BRM; Clark's teammate, past World Champ and 1966 Indy winner Graham Hill; Jack Brabham; Denny Hulme; Jochen Rindt; John Surtees, and Chris Amon, among others.

While Clark took the lead at the start, Hill failed to make the start because of a flat battery and had to set off from the pits a long way behind. Gurney tried to make the start without putting his car in gear and so second place went to Rindt with Stewart and Mike Parkes (who had finished second to Foyt and Gurney at Le Mans in a Ferrari) giving chase. Towards the end of the first lap Parkes slid on some oil from the BRM and crashed at 150mph in the Blanchimont corner (he survived-by no means a given in that dangerous era).

Rindt faded in the early laps and that left Stewart to chase after Clark with Amon moving up to third although he was soon pushed back by Gurney who then chased after Stewart. At the end of lap 12 both Clark and Gurney pitted. Clark had his plugs changed and rejoined in seventh place while Gurney told the pit that his fuel pressure was low but rejoined without stopping. He remained in second place but had dropped 15 seconds behind Stewart. Stewart would run into gear-selection problems later and had to drive one-handed, using the other to hold the gear lever in place. (On occasion the BRM H-16 engine was also known to blow spark plugs clean out of their threads-now how's THAT for high compression!) On lap 21 Gurney took the lead, and never looked back-he went on to win by over a minute. It would be Eagle's one and only Grand Prix victory, but it was a victory Dan Gurney could cherish-he had beaten the best in his own car. (Stewart finished second with Amon third.) It was Dan's 7th and final Formula 1 victory (4 Grands Prix and 3 non-championship races).