Of all of the things that Dan Gurney can and should be remembered for, a magnum of Moët & Chandon just might be at the top of the list. The 24 Hours of LeMans had just finished, and Gurney and co-driver A.J. Foyt had taken first place in a Ford GT40 Mk.IV, the second time the GT40 program had taken LeMans and the only time the Mk.IV would win it. As he stood up on the podium, the bottle was handed off and in what can only be described as the mania of a champion who was living in the moment, he shook the bottle and began spraying any and everybody who was within firing range with champagne. Carroll Shelby…Henry Ford II…didn’t matter who it was, Gurney was more than happy to share in the celebration in his own method.

That’s just one of the many inventions that the driver from Riverside, California brought to the table in his decades of motorsports activity. From an early age, he was a gifted wheelman and wrench, and the wheelman part helped fuel his reputation. From racing his 1935 Ford on the streets near an air base near Riverside, he became a driver-in-demand, something that would carry him through stints in sports cars, NASCAR, Formula One, and Indy Cars. His driving style was cautious, owing to an accident at the 1960 Dutch Grand Prix when his BRM suffered a brake failure, leading to a crash that killed a spectator. He would only use the brakes sparingly, drive fluidly and conservatively and only go completely all-out when he got to the point in a race where he felt he had nothing else to lose. He would drive fairly and safely, but making the mistake of misjudging his abilities would be a mistake.

Gurney was comfortable behind the wheel…as comfortable as a six-foot-four man can be in a sports car, anyways. The “Gurney Bubble” on the Ford GT-40 was a concession to the car that allowed him to fit inside with a helmet on. He took a modified 1961 Chevrolet Impala to England and proceeded to lay waste to all comers at a meet at Silverstone before a broken rear wheel shut him down on the last lap. The next time he tried to run the car, FIA officials would not allow it to compete (officially, it was something about homologation rules, but more likely it wasn’t good to see a 1961 Chevrolet with a full interior leading a lot of angry Jaguar owners.) He drove in the NASCAR Grand National series until 1970, drove in the Grand American section between 1968 and 1971, and made a reappearance in 1980 at the request of a friend, and would up being in a Chevrolet, paired off with a young driver named Dale Earnhardt.

Gurney also acted as a team owner, under the All American Racers moniker. Founded in 1964 in partnership with Shelby, All American Racers have been involved in Formula One, sports cars, Champ Car, Trans-Am, IMSA GT and the careers of names such as P.J. Jones, Bobby Unser and Juan Manuel Fangio II., as well the development for such cars as the Eagle series of race cars, Toyota Celicas for Camel GT, and the DeltaWing. Gurney himself remained at the top mast of AAR until 2011 when his son Justin took over.

Dan Gurney is held to the highest level of respect among racers and race fans, often being spoken about in the same breath as Phil Hill, Mario Andretti, and Sterling Moss. His contributions to racing and engineering are bedrock to modern racing. He was a racing Renaissance Man, a multi-talented, multi-faceted driver who could go all-out but understood restraint, who could engineer but could also drive. We will remember him best, though, in that shining moment that Life photographer Flip Schulke captured on that day in 1967.

Godspeed, Dan Gurney.