Cunningham destroyed the British challenger Sceptre, easily winning four straight races. “I’d never done any match racing,” he explains, “so ‘Corny’ helped me with timing the starts and all that. Ask about his victory and he’ll remind you he was just substituting for a much better sailor, Cornelius Shields, who had heart trouble. But extreme modesty is another trait of Cunningham’s. In 1958, of course, Briggs Cunningham secured his place in the annals of his other favorite sport when as skipper of Columbia, he successfully defended the America’s Cup. Always was.” He was also a formidable competitor – at sea as well as on land. “Yes, gentleman, a good description of him,” says John Fitch, whose motor racing star rose to ascendancy in Cunningham’s cars in the 1950s, “he’s a gentle man. “He’s the last gentleman sportsman,” says Laura Cunningham, Briggs’s wife of almost 30 years. In this age of “I’m number-one,” in-your-face superstars, Briggs Cunningham is a throwback to a simpler, nobler time, a time when honor and character meant more than just winning by any means and at any cost. The occasion was a surprise party to celebrate the 85th birthday of the patron of American sports car racing, one Briggs Swift (how appropriate!) Cunningham.Īs he stood unobtrusively off to one side of the two-story entrance hall to his home, one would never have suspected that the quiet, courteous, silver-haired man with bushy eyebrows shaking hands with one admirer after another was a true American sports hero. They came from near and far to honor him, some of them legends in their own right: race-car drivers, builders, and engineers whose names adorn the pages of America’s automobile racing history – John Fitch, Sherwood Johnston, Dan Gurney, Bill Stroppe, John von Neumann, “Kas” Kastner, Warren Olsen, Bill Devin, and Augie Pabst, just to name a few. Ben Shuckburgh – Replica Based on C-3 Chassis #5238.Walt Hansgen Inducted into SCCA Hall of Fame.“The Quest” Documentary: 1960 Le Mans Corvette #3.Cunninghams at Limerock Vintage Festival (1991).Sebring International Raceway Hall of Fame.NEAR – New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame.
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