Word: gurney
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...favorites fall by the wayside: Graham Hill, the 1966 winner, out on the 24th lap with a sick piston in his Lotus-Ford; Mario Andretti, the speediest qualifier at 168.9 m.p.h., out on the 59th lap when his Brawner-Ford threw a wheel on the No. 3 turn; Dan Gurney, the second fastest qualifier (at 167.2 m.p.h.), black-flagged on the 161st lap with a blown cylinder in his American Eagle. And they had watched, first with awe, then with mounting ennui, as Parnelli Jones, in his turbine-powered STP Special, made it look too easy-coasting almost soundlessly around...
...that dominated the 500 for years, there was Lloyd Ruby, who hit 165.2 m.p.h. in his American Red Ball Special powered by a rear-mounted Offy. For patriots, unhappy that foreign "sporty car" drivers in foreign machines have won the last two 500s, there was California's Dan Gurney, who blasted his American Eagle around the track at a fantastic 167.2 m.p.h.-demolishing the four-lap record set last year by Mario Andretti. And; for aficionados of sheer daring, there was Andretti himself...
Still smarting from last year, when an oil leak forced him out of the race on the 27th lap, Andretti watched Gurney break his record, cracked: "It's nice to have something to shoot at"-and tramped on the throttle of his 500-h.p. Dean Van Lines Hawk-Ford. Shooting for 170 m.p.h., Mario came enticingly close-169.7 m.p.h.-on the third of four qualifying laps. Too enticingly. "Let me tell you, that fourth was one thrilling lap," he said later. "I lost it in the No. 1 turn, got straightened out in No. 2, then lost it again...
...race was won by New Zealand's Denis Hulme, averaging 75.89 m.p.h. Much of the luster went off his victory in the uproar that followed. U.S. Driver Dan Gurney insisted: "Cars are meant to negotiate a track, not the other way around." But Claude Bourillot, president of the Federation Francais des Sports Automobiles, argued that most European tracks are 50 years behind the times. "We are," he said, "like aviators trying to land Boeing jets on the airfields...
...August, when Ace Driver Ken Miles was killed testing a new "J" car at Riverside, Calif. The J was intended to supersede the Mark II, but it developed bugs; so Ford had to go into Daytona with last year's Mark IIs. Even so, California's Dan Gurney won the pole position by clocking 119 m.p.h., and all six company Fords qualified among the twelve fastest cars on the starting grid-despite the fact that Ferrari had entered three new "P4s," 900 Ibs. lighter than the Mark IIs and with only 40 fewer horses under their hoods...