Gurney chose Lola T70s, the best customer cars of the day, as raw material for his highly personalized, Gurney-Weslake Ford-powered 1966 and 1967 Can-Am challengers. (Left) He won the second race of 1966 at Bridgehampton, but lost relative speed later in the season. (Right) Shown here at Elkhart Lake, the 1967 edition, a T70 Mk3, was faster everywhere, but didn’t finish a race.
For all the great drivers who contested the old Can-Am, few did well. Your Amons, Andrettis, Brabhams, Elfords, Joneses, Halls, Motschenbachers, Parsonses, Poseys, Rodriguezes, Sifferts, many more…none of them ever won a race. How surprising is it that so much talent came up so dry?
Frankly, not that surprising. Though the 1966–1974 Canadian-American Challenge Cup was a drivers championship on paper, in reality its practically unrestricted rules format made it a constructors series. Without the latest, fastest car, you were a helpless also-ran.
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