Word: gurney
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...bright young engineer whom Iacocca had made his product planning manager, asked the advance styling department to draw up designs for a little sports car. When it produced a trim clay model of a little two-seater that looked like a rocket, Iacocca invited Grand Prix Driver Dan Gurney and other racing buffs in to give their opinions. Recalls Iacocca: "All the buffs said, 'What a car! It'll be the greatest car ever built.' But when I looked at the guys saying it-the offbeat crowd, the real buffs-I said, 'That...
...laps went by, hour on hour, and still the clutch of Cobras held together. Down the straight they roared: lead Cobra in the delicate hands of deft Bob Holbert; behind him, the brilliant Dan Gurney; in the open cockpit behind him, the helmeted head of former World Champion Phil Hill...
...Gurney wryly picked up the gauntlet by ripping off a 115 m.p.h. lap. Nobody else came close...
...mile course was part road, part track; in the infield, it snaked through a series of sharp hairpin turns; then it swept onto Daytona's ultrafast, banked stock-car oval. In the lighter, more maneuverable Lotus, Gurney picked up valuable seconds on the turns; Foyt got the seconds back by blasting around the oval flat-out at nearly 185 m.p.h. By the 20th lap, both had lapped the entire field. But neither one could shake the other. Sixteen times in the first 38 laps the lead changed hands, while both drivers nursed their cars carefully, hoping for a break...
Foyt coasted to victory. "It got pretty lonely out there after Gurney left," he chuckled, posing for photographers with Miss Universe. "But I would have won anyway." Gurney was not so sure: "This issue between us is not at all settled." Other sports-car drivers groused that Foyt won only because he had the fastest car. "That gearbox alone cost a few thousand dollars," said one, "and those Weber carburetors are the best there is." Said another: "I'd like to see him in a lesser car before I made up my mind how good he is." But Foyt...