Dan Gurney against spec cars

"The rules have become such that the factories are the only ones that are allowed any creative input," Dan Gurney told Gordon Kirby in April of '06. "Since Toyota and Honda started racing in CART in the nineties and the IRL in 2003, you have to sign a release from them that you cannot look inside the engine. You can't do anything. In effect, they passed a rule that said you're not allowed to compete with them.

"When they started doing that I said, 'Why would you do that? Why stop innovation? Why stop creativity? What effect does that have on young people coming along and wanting to learn about those things?' The answer is it bleaches them out. So the social consequences of the way the manufacturers have control of the rules really bothers me. If these mega outfits aren't pushed to do something, nothing new will happen. Maybe the hundred mpg carburetor that everybody jokes about is out there, but we won't find it the way the rules are written today.

"You're not allowed to do what you want anymore," Dan added. "You're darn near classed as a criminal because you might want to continue to be creative against the bureaucratic rules. The freedom to be creative is what I liked so much about the sport and it's just been wrung out of it by the bureaucrats."