On Sunday, A.J. Foyt, one of the greatest American-born drivers ever, turned 76 years old. While Foyt is best known as one of only three four-time Indianapolis 500 champions, he is also the only driver to ever have won at Indianapolis, the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
While all are great achievements, perhaps it is Foyt?s only win off of North American soil that is the most impressive overall. To this day, his 1967 Le Mans victory is the only time an all-American team ? American drivers driving an American car prepped by an American crew ? ever took the checkers at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
Foyt was only two weeks removed from his third Indianapolis 500 win, which he inherited as Parnelli Jones? gearbox failed with merely four laps to go. He was paired behind the wheel with Dan Gurney, who was competing in his second Formula 1 season with his own Anglo American Racers squad and had won the non-point Race of Champions at Brands Hatch.
They would run a car prepared by Carroll Shelby, who had taken the top two spots at Le Mans the year before with the Ford GT40 Mk. II. Six of those vehicles were entered the previous year, three by Shelby and three by Holman-Moody. H-M relied on American drivers like Ronnie Bucknum, Mark Donohue, and Mario Andretti, but only Bucknum?s car made it to the finish. Meanwhile, Shelby relied on a Brit and three Australians; his third car was the only all-American team. Consisting of Gurney and Jerry Grant, that car completed 257 laps before dropping out.
But 1967 would be different. Ken Miles, Shelby?s former top driver and the winner of the 1966 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring, would be killed in a testing accident that August. Subsequently, driver pairings would switch around on the Shelby team. Foyt and Gurney took car No. 1; Donohue and defending Le Mans winner Bruce McLaren would drive the No. 2; Bucknum and Aussie Paul Hawkins would take the No. 57. Meanwhile, H-M fielded four cars, primarily employing open-wheel drivers and one car with Ford?s French arm. All seven vehicles would now be Mk. IVs, updated versions of the J-car version of the GT40 in which Miles had been killed.
Foyt and Gurney were regarded somewhat lightly going into the event. Not only were McLaren and Donohue the better road-racing team on the Shelby stable (remember that Foyt was primarily an oval driver in USAC), nobody thought that a team of two ultra-competitive drivers would be able to keep the car together for the full 24 hours of the event.
But Gurney and Foyt chose not to compete with one another in the same car. Instead, they went against their individual natures and cooperated in the car. Gurney, by far the more experienced road racer of the two, guided Foyt around the track with average laps, never getting into a hot lap competition in the same car. Although Foyt ran only a handful of practice laps on the track, they were more than enough, as the two drivers meticulously protected their vehicle.
The No. 1 took the lead 90 minutes into the event and never looked back, even with pressure from the factory Ferrari 330 P4 of Ludovico Scarfiotti and Mike Parkes. The Ford had a good four laps on the second-place Ferrari, but that?s not to say it was taken without a serious challenge.
Parkes looked to capitalize on Gurney?s conservative-but-steady pace by throwing him off his game. In the middle of the night, Parkes closed in on Gurney and began flashing his lights in an attempt to distract the American into overdriving or wrecking his vehicle. Gurney put up with it for a while, but finally pulled onto the grass at Arnage and stopped the vehicle. Parkes did the same.
For a few brief moments, the top two cars at Le Mans were simply sitting still on the race course.
Some say Le Mans is like a chess match; whoever is the smartest in any given race will probably come out on top. Usually, that chess is played at speeds of over 150 miles per hour. But in a rare turn of events, Gurney checkmated Parkes by standing still.
Eventually both cars pulled out, Parkes in front of Gurney; the Ford got by the Ferrari again not long after, and the race was completed. For the second year in a row, a Shelby-prepped Ford would take glory at Le Mans. Gurney initiated a tradition on the podium by spraying those watching below with his bottle of champagne in celebration. Meanwhile, Foyt was reported to have asked on the podium, tongue planted firmly in cheek, ?Do I win Rookie of the Year??
1967 would continue to be a great year for both drivers. Gurney would score the maiden win for his AAR team in Belgium the very next week. Meanwhile, Foyt would win his fifth USAC Champ Car title that year, winning four of the final nine races on his way to five on the year. Meanwhile, Fords would win the next two Le Mans events before pulling out of sports car racing entirely in 1970.
It wasn?t an American race, though American drivers won it. They won it by adopting drastically different driving styles while together than they would have separately. But by proving that they could adapt to different circumstances, A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney asserted themselves ? and American power, the Ford GT40 Mk. IV, with them ? as the best race car drivers in the world, driving the best race car in the world.
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Read more from Christopher Leone at Open Wheel America
Photo: Racing in America
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