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Dan Gurney RIP
#1
Sad news today, Dan Gurney RIP.

Here is a copied paragraph from Hot Rod magazine tell the story when Dan Gurney drove for Duffy Livingstone at the 1959 Bahama Speed weeks:

Dan Gurney on Duff
Dan Gurney drove a kart for Duffy during the beginning of Nassau Speed Weeks in 1959, and it almost cost Gurney his professional driving career. Duffy built the first track for karts in the U.S. on the Go-Kart Manufacturing facility in Azusa, a challenging 3/10-mile road course. “And 10 feet,” chuckled Duff.
“I knew Duffy,” began Dan Gurney, “and I got wind that they were going to have a kart race in Nassau during Speed Weeks. I was scheduled (June ’59) to be there anyway racing. The fact it was going to be the biggest kart race ever with a $1,000 to win…yeah I wanted to be a part of it. It was a serious effort on my part. That’s when I went to Duffy’s kart track and worked with the stopwatch and got down to business with the same West Bend twin-engine kart I would be racing in Nassau. I was deadly serious about the whole thing. I started 28th and I worked my way up to 2nd place. I made a mistake, got a little too anxious to pass the guy that was leading and I lost it. I got out of the kart and a guy nailed me from behind. I did a summersault into the hay bales. I was afraid to look at my foot because I thought he took it off.”
Gurney was scheduled to drive the Tipo 61 Birdcage Maserati at Nassau, but had to withdraw from the Governor’s Trophy race because of his injury. Luckily for Dan he was in the process of leaving Ferrari and going to the BRM Formula One team, because his karting incident would not have sat well with Enzo.

Here is a link to page 166 of a book that lists the drivers and karts of that race:

https://books.google.com/books?id=rkXnZF...ace&f=true

Finally karting legend Mark Dismore drove for Dan Gurney in an co drove a Toyota Eagle Mk III GTP and won the 1993 Daytona 24hrs.

RIP Dan Gurney
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#2
Met him at Monterey Historics briefly about 15 years ago. Very kind gentleman. RIP.
Jim Waltz, West Sacramento, CA
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#3
(01-14-2018, 07:50 PM)Romero Llamas Wrote: Sad news today, Dan Gurney RIP.

Here is a copied paragraph from Hot Rod magazine tell the story when Dan Gurney drove for Duffy Livingstone at the 1959 Bahama Speed weeks:

Dan Gurney on Duff
Dan Gurney drove a kart for Duffy during the beginning of Nassau Speed Weeks in 1959, and it almost cost Gurney his professional driving career. Duffy built the first track for karts in the U.S. on the Go-Kart Manufacturing facility in Azusa, a challenging 3/10-mile road course. “And 10 feet,” chuckled Duff.
“I knew Duffy,” began Dan Gurney, “and I got wind that they were going to have a kart race in Nassau during Speed Weeks. I was scheduled (June ’59) to be there anyway racing. The fact it was going to be the biggest kart race ever with a $1,000 to win…yeah I wanted to be a part of it. It was a serious effort on my part. That’s when I went to Duffy’s kart track and worked with the stopwatch and got down to business with the same West Bend twin-engine kart I would be racing in Nassau. I was deadly serious about the whole thing. I started 28th and I worked my way up to 2nd place. I made a mistake, got a little too anxious to pass the guy that was leading and I lost it. I got out of the kart and a guy nailed me from behind. I did a summersault into the hay bales. I was afraid to look at my foot because I thought he took it off.”
Gurney was scheduled to drive the Tipo 61 Birdcage Maserati at Nassau, but had to withdraw from the Governor’s Trophy race because of his injury. Luckily for Dan he was in the process of leaving Ferrari and going to the BRM Formula One team, because his karting incident would not have sat well with Enzo.

Here is a link to page 166 of a book that lists the drivers and karts of that race:

https://books.google.com/books?id=rkXnZF...ace&f=true

Finally karting legend Mark Dismore drove for Dan Gurney in an co drove a Toyota Eagle Mk III GTP and won the 1993 Daytona 24hrs.

RIP Dan Gurney

Duffy told me about that incident once, he said he was right behind Dan when he spun out and would have either hit  him or else taken out a hay bale. He said he was driving the Puch and figured it could handle the hay bale alright so he nailed the hay bale. One of the other Go Kart team drivers was right behind Duffy and missed him but nailed Gurney, It was either Tex Bell or Bill Jefferies, I can't remember which.
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