Gurney's Goodies

All The Innovative Ways Dan Gurney Shaped Racing As We Know It Today

Winning Le Mans For America—And Tall Guys Everywhere

All American Racers started in 1966, but one of their earliest projects was one of their most legendary.

One problem: Gurney’s helmeted 6'4" body didn’t quite fit in the car, and thus, the Gurney bubble was invented to allow space around his head. The smooth bubble fit over the driver’s head to allow Gurney enough headroom to race.

Sharing The Bubbly

It’s always fascinating to learn who popularized different post-race celebrations. Long before we had donuts and shoeys, Dan Gurney started the now-ubiquitous habit of spraying anyone with reach of the podium with celebratory champagne.

After winning Le Mans in 1967, Gurney was handed a magnum of champagne and just couldn’t help himself. Gurney explained, as quoted on the All American Racers website:

I was so stoked that when they handed me the Magnum of Moët et Chandon, I shook the bottle and began spraying at the photographers, drivers, Henry Ford II, Carroll Shelby and their wives. It was a very special moment at the time, I was not aware that I had started a tradition that continues in winner’s circles all over the world to this day.

The bottle was initially given to Life photographer Flip Schulke, who captured the madness before ducking from the spray and proudly displayed it in his home for many years. But given how the champagne spray went viral long before “going viral” was a thing, Schulke eventually gave it back to Gurney and the All American Racers shop.

America’s Best Run In Formula One

Dan Gurney also did something no other American driver in an American-built race car has done outside of the Indianapolis 500: win a Formula One race. Gurney’s team was the Anglo-American Racers for his F1 run due to the British Weslake V12 they used, but the Eagle Mk. 1 car itself was built in America, as Gurney’s team’s own design.

The Gurney Flap

Gurney’s other namesake contribution to motorsports was as simple as bolting some aluminum right-angle to the trailing edge of a race car’s rear wing, yet it changed the game for aerodynamics.

The Gurney flap worked so well that Unser then complained of too much understeer from the extra downforce at the rear, forcing Gurney’s team to modify the front of the car to match. Later, McDonnell-Douglas utilized the concept for lift on aircraft, and other race teams started to copy it.

What it does is simple: airflow behind the flap forms a pair of vortices that deflect air going over the wing-and-flap combo downwards, creating precious downforce that sucks the rear of the car to the ground and allows for faster cornering speeds if the front aerodynamics are a good match.

Adding a Gurney flap is still a simple, inexpensive aerodynamic tweak used by racers today.

Complete list (Jalopnik.com)