The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

Red Ball Garage in New York City and the Portofino Inn at Redondo Beach California in 35 hours and 54 minutes. The car was a dead-stock Ferrari Day- tona borrowed from exotic car dealer Kirk F. White in Philadelphia. They were 53 minutes ahead of the second place finisher, a Chevrolet Sportsman van entered by the Polish Racing Driv- ers of America, which had been set up by Tony Adamowicz, Oscar Kovaleski and Brad Niemcek to run the distance without stopping. Those guys left New York at 12:11 a.m. on November 15, 1971 with 298 gallons of gas on board but did have to stop in Albuquerque for an additional 78 gallons. Four of the eight teams received 12 tickets along the way, including Gurney who was clocked in Arizona at 135 mph in a 70 mph zone. Gurney was quoted as saying “ At no time did we exceed 175 mph .” A full life, well led, can be all any of us could hope for. We only get so many trips around the sun and without doubt, Dan Gurney made the most of them. His road ended in January 2018 when he was 86 years old. The man most responsible for the 1965 World Championship title for Shelby American was born just north of Chicago in 1933. His father owned a Cord dealership so fast cars were the subject of some early dinner talk, but the 1936 model year had production and reliability issues and the Bon- durants moved as far west as possible later that year. They settled in West- wood Village in Los Angeles were Bob developed an affinity for motorcycles and hot rods. The racing started with dirt tracking motorcycles but that led to an SCCA license and a Morgan Plus 4 in 1956, followed by a Triumph TR 2 over the next year and a half before he purchased a used 1957 Corvette race car and cut his teeth with the big-bore guys. Prize money was not keeping the Corvette on the track, so Bondurant went to work selling used Corvettes for Dana Chevrolet. There were some good racing results in 1958, but 1959 saw him emerge as a force on the SoCal tracks, winning 18 of 20 races and the West Coast “B” Production Championship. His success led to a gig driving for SheltonWashburn Chevro- let out of Santa Barbara for whom Bondurant won 30 out of 32 races, plus some random rides in the odd Ferrari, Maserati or Scarab. In September 1962 GM flew Dave MacDonald, Bob Bondurant and Jerry Grant to St. Louis where they picked up three of the first 1963 Z06 Corvettes, which the boys then drove home to California! Two weeks later was the first show- down between the new Shelby Cobra and the 1963 model year Corvettes. Billy Krause was in CSX2002 and Dave MacDonald was in his new Z06 at the Riverside 3-Hour Enduro on Oc- tober 13, 1962. Krause ran off to a lengthy lead over the Vettes before he broke a rear hub, but the handwriting was on the wall and GM was getting ready to pull back from sponsored sports car racing. By 1963 the Corvette wins were getting harder to come by as the Cobra was ascendant and Bondurant signed with Shelby American in time for the USRRC Continental Divide race on August 18, 1963 where he piloted CSX2129 to 5th OA, 1st GT. Three weeks later Bondurant and MacDon- ald teamed up for a 4th OA and 1st GT at a 500-miler at Road America fol- lowed by 8th OA (in CSX2137) at the now-famous Los Angeles Times Grand Prix at Riverside in October 1963. 1964 found him at Sebring where he and Lew Spencer brought CSX2301 home 5th OA, 2nd GT behind Mac- Donald and Holbert. Then it was off to Europe beginning with the Targa Flo- rio, the first race on the continent for Shelby American, in CSX2345, paired with Phil Hill. They DNF’d with bro- ken suspension. June found Bon- durant paired with Dan Gurney in a Daytona Coupe (CSX2287) at LeMans where they finished a spectacular 4th OA, 1st GT. Bondurant added more World Championship points in a cou- ple of later hill climbs and the end of the year saw Shelby American nar- rowly loose the FIA GT World Cham- pionship on some last minute shenanigans by Enzo Ferrari. The next year, 1965, Bob Bondurant had the racing year of his life. He found himself fully employed by Shelby American in Cobra roadsters, Daytona Coupes and GT40s with rides at Daytona, Sebring and all the big races in Europe where he won seven out of ten races in the GT class which helped clinch the FIA GT World Man- ufacturers Championship by August. And then it was over; Ford and Shelby American were focused solely on their GT40 program and Ferrari took the The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 47 Bob Bondurant Bob Bondurant