Relics raise a laugh for Dan

Sir Jack Brabham could not attend the Festival of Speed but his sometime team-mate, sometime rival and enduring friend Dan Gurney was seated at lunch in the Drivers’ Club when I wandered by to be intercepted by Ewi, the great man’s wife. “Come and see what we have here,” she said, and there on the table – brought in by proudly beaming former Brabham team mechanic Nick Goozee (later manager of Penske’s UK and Formula 1 operation) – was the actual steering wheel from Dan’s 1964 French GP-winning Brabham together with Black Jack’s contemporary crash helmet.

One spoke of the steering wheel is cracked clean through. “Are you responsible for that, Dan?” Deep rumble of laughter. “I don’t think so but sometimes I guess they weren’t quite up to it… ha ha… I guess…”.

With foot injuries, Dan did not drive over the Goodwood weekend but he said it gave him the chance just to wander around and look at everything there. And, as a self confessed ‘car guy’ through and through, he really relished that.