Sunday 16th April 1967

Dan Gurney drove a Mercury Cougar to victory in the ‘Green Valley 300′ SCCA Trans-Am race on the 1.6 mile Green Valley Raceway. The Texas state flag dropped to signal the LeMans style start with drivers running to their cars. Ron Dykes jumped into the lead in a Mustang and at the end of lap 1 it was Dykes, Freddie Van Beuren and Gurney with Jerry Titus up to 4th after starting 28th on the grid. Titus had rolled his Mustang in final practice the day before and had to run his patched up car in an early morning consolation race to even make the field. On lap 2, Titus passed Gurney and Van Beuren in one fell swoop to move into 2nd and took the lead one lap later with an inside dive around Dykes. Once in front, Titus pulled away. On lap 40, Titus pulled into the pits and stepped out of the car to have ice water poured on him. Titus returned over 2 minutes later, but continued to have problems with the heat, forcing him to make more stops before being relieved by Dykes, who had retired. The practice roll had closed off the left side air ducts, adding to Titus’ heat problems on a day with both temperature and humidity in the 90’s. With Titus’ stop, Parnelli Jones took the lead in his Cougar. Jones led until stalling following his pit stop. The stall cost Jones a lap and gave teammate Gurney the lead. Gurney went on to win by that margin, giving the Lincoln-Mercury Cougar team it’s first win in Trans-Am competition.