Chuck Daigh (29 November 1923 – 29 April 2008) was an American racing car driver. He broke into Grand Prix racing through Lance Reventlow’s Scarab team, through the virtue of being one of the resident engineers. Born in Long Beach, California.
He participated in six World Championship Formula One races, debuting on May 29, 1960 and scoring no championship points. He also participated in one non-Championship Formula One race.
Following the 1960 season, Chuck Daigh went on to contest races in the International Formula league in Europe, driving the previous year’s front-engined Scarab. He finished eighth at Goodwood contesting the Lavant Cup, and finished seventh in an attempt at the International Trophy. He went on to crash out of the British Empire Trophy at Silverstone.
He was also a successful sportscar driver in America, winning the 1959 Sebring endurance classic & also tried to qualify twice for the Indianapolis 500, but without success. He also won the 1958 United States Sports Car Grand Prix at Riverside, California, driving a Scarab. This event was largely credited with launching professional sports car racing in the United States.
He died in hospital in Newport Beach, California after a brief battle with heart and respiratory problems. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Charles George Daigh was born in Long Beach, California, and while still at Compton High School he was also managing a Union Oil petrol station. Before the War, he worked transporting rock from Catalina to build a breakwater at Long beach which would counter possible Japanese submarines. Following this he had to choose between continuing in civil engineering and delay going the Army or move to the Trans Alaskan Highway where his friends and brother were working. Chuck enlisted as a paratrooper and his unit parachuted into Sicily, crossing over to Italy at Salerno, and on D-Day he parachuted into Normandy on D-Day. He fought in France, Belgium and Germany, plus in the notorious Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. He was wounded three times and it was feared he would never regain the use of his arm. He told of one occasion where, due to a mistake, a two day battle had been against the British Army until they realised who they were!
After the war and back in Long Beach, he and his brother raced self built hot rods (one of his cars was an Alfa Romeo powered model A-Model Ford) and ran at the Dry Lakes. On El Mirage and Rosamond Dry Lakes they took many records with their roadsters and coupes.On one occasion he was racing at Carroll Speedway in Gardenia and while practicing, team owner J.C. Agajanian asked who was driving and after being told ‘it was just Chuck fooling around’, replied that he had broken the track record.
At the start of the 1950s he joined an All-Star team, preparing Lincolns for the Carrera Panamericana and was the co-driver on several occasions with Walt Faulkner, finishing ninth in 1952 and eighth in 1953, though did not finish 1954’s race when with Chuck Stevenson. This was a tough, gruelling event, crossing mountains and deserts, plus lined by fans and sometimes locals would deliberately herd cattle onto the roads to be hit, and then demand compensation.
1953 saw his first sportscar race, at Moffet Field, California, driving Jim Lowe’s Frazer Nash and he later won, plus took a fourth place at Long Beach in Jay Beesemyer’s Jaguar XK120. In the following year he ran a modified Kurtis 500S Lincoln special, winning at Santa Barbara, won with a Troutman-Barnes Ford powered car at Paramount Ranch and Santa Barbara, plus took the Jaguar to second at Palm Springs and fourth at Pebble Beach.
In 1955 with the Troutman Barnes car he won at Hansen Dam, came second at Torrey Pines (behind Ken Miles) and third at Palm Springs. He and Sterling Edwards drove a Ferrari Monza in the 12 Hour Sebring race and in practice their lap times were faster than the factory team cars. They were running second in the race until having to retire due to engine problems; Chuck later said he thought he was driving fast until Mike Hawthorn’s D-Type Jaguar went past him as though he was standing still!
1956 saw a second place at Pomona, third and fourth at Santa Barbara plus fifth at Torrey Pines with the Troutman Barnes car. At one race with the Kurtis, a spectator told Chuck that it was the smoothest driving and shifting he’d seen; Chuck replied that it should be as it had an automatic transmission. He then worked for Ford Racing and became involved in their entry for the Daytona Beach Speed Week Trials, overseeing the construction of the famous ‘Battlebirds’ Thunderbirds. He ran 93.312 miles per hour in standing mile competition and finished third, with one of them achieving better than 200mph.
At that time in the SCCA, drivers could be suspended if they raced in professional series so he drove as Charles George in USAC stock car. He broke the stock car 500 record at Indianapolis and had a new record at Milwaukee’s one mile paved oval plus he and Danny Eames set a new record from Los Angeles to New York, covering the distance non stop in 44 hours. His car set 416 American and International records at Bonneville, where several oval tracks were set up on the salt flats. Stopping only for fuel, they drove 50,000 miles around the tracks, going from one to another when the salt broke up and it took them 21 days. In what would be a busy year there were victories with the Troutman Barnes car at Pomona, Paramount Ranch, Santa Barbara and Riverside, plus second places at Hawaii and Paramount plus victories in a Cooper T43 at Hourglass Field.
Following this joined Lance Reventlow’s Scarab operation, as a driver plus chief mechanic and engineer. At the start of 1958 the FIA decreed a 3-litre limit in the World Sports Car Championship so the Scarab had to run in SCCA races, rather than internationally as L.Reventlow intended. The car began to dominate, winning at Thompson, Meadowdale, Montgomery, the Nassau Trophy and after setting a course record in qualifying of 2minutes 4 seconds at the Riverside 200 race he went on to win from Dan Gurney’s Ferrari.
He was invited to join Ferrari for 1959’s Sebring 12 Hours and shared a 250TR with Dan Gurney, Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien and they won by a lap. Dan Gurney said of him ”Chuck was not only a excellent engineer, but he also could drive the wheels off a car…when I got into racing, I soon found out who the real heavyweights were. In those days, Chuck was like a god to us.” During the year he attempted to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 plus drove a Camoradi Maserati 250F at Lime Rock, finishing second in the 60 lap race. This was the famous race where Rodger Ward won in his Kurtis Midget. Chuck described how Rodger ran a shrewd race and how he ‘knew his car was faster than the Maserati but the brakes wouldn’t last at the pace he was setting. He let Chuck pass him and kept him in sight until near the end of the race. Then he would catch up fast, then let his brakes cool off and then passed him easily at the finish.’ There were further races with a Kurtis Kraft 500 and the Troutman Barnes car plus he drove a Maserati 450S, Ferrari 250TR and 410 Sport plus a Holman Moody Ford Thunderbird. There were overseas races at Silverstone and Le Mans and he often helped as a mechanic for other drivers with Bruce McLaren crediting Chuck with much of his success in the races that they worked together.
For 1960 Scarab designed a front-engine F1 car and its first F1 race was at Monaco but its tight, twisty, layout did not suit them plus there were up against nimble rear-engined cars. Chuck also had to contend with a brake pedal that would suddenly plunge to the firewall, then seem fine when checked over in the pits; Chuck said “I almost went into the harbor one time when the pedal went to the floor. It wasn’t real pleasant.” He said that though the cars were supposed to produce around 260 horsepower it was probably 218 or 220 but despite a valiant effort in qualifying neither car made the grid.
At Zandvoort, he got himself on the grid but despite Lance Reventlow’s qualifying time not being good enough the officials allowed him to start the race. This was angrily protested by the privateer teams who had been moved down the grid but surprisingly, Lance backed the privateers and after a heated exchange with the organisers he told his team to pack up and leave. Chuck later stated “Lance wanted to be a good sport..He did not realise it was business.”
Spa saw both Scarabs finally start though they retired from the race, with Chuck suffering an oil leak. However any result would have been overshadowed by that tragic weekend, as Stirling Moss and Mike Taylor sustained serious after crashing in practice and Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey were both killed in accidents during the race. He retired with an engine problem at Reims but at the season’s final race, the US GP at Riverside, he finished tenth, taking Scarab’s only GP finish. There was also a one-off race during the year in a works Cooper T51-Climax at the British GP, but he retired from it. He raced a Camoradi Maserati with Masten Gregory at Le Mans and in practice the car was reaching 170 mph, 10 mph faster than the next quickest. In the race there were problems starting the car and M.Gregory finally got going in 24th place though by the end of the Mulsanne straight he was in the lead! At the first driver change the starter motor failed and it was an hour before Chuck could rejoin the track but despite battling back they retired due to electrical problems after 82 laps.
In 1961 the Scarab team contested the Intercontinental Formula and he finished eighth at Goodwood’s Lavant Cup followed by seventh in the International Trophy at Silverstone. Unfortunately he crashed heavily during practice for the British Empire Trophy at Silverstone, badly injuring his pelvis. He also raced the Scarab in the 200 Mile race at Riverside and at Laguna Seca though did not finish these races.
For 1962, Scarab built a rear engined, Buick powered, car but rule changes brought in by the FIA made the car illegal in European competition. It was raced once in Australia, in a Sandown International Cup Formula Libre race at Sandown Park, where Chuck finished fourth after an epic battle with Stirling Moss. He also drove a Maserati Tipo 151 in the 200 Mile race at Riverside plus raced Jim Hall’s Chaparral 1 at the Sebring 12 Hours, finishing sixth with Hap Sharp, Ronnie Hissom and Jim Hall.
Chuck raced for Frank Arciero in 1963, helping rebuild the Coventry Climax motor in their Lotus 19 and won with it in the Player’s 200 at Mosport, beating drivers including Graham Hill, Parnelli Jones and Roger Penske.
Besides his motor racing, he had a very successful career in boat racing and was the navigator, throttle man and engine builder on the Thunderball, an off-shore racing boat that achieved great success. In later years, one of his last projects was building a Flat Head Ford Lakester to attempt to break the class land speed record. Sadly Chuck never got to finish as he passed away in April 2008.
Carroll Shelby remarked of Chuck’s engineering skills ‘There are only two people I can think of who can sit down, take a welding torch, build their own chassis, go out and test it and then win races with it. They are Jack Brabham and Chuck Daigh. I put Chuck in the same category as Jack.’ Considering Chuck’s mechanical expertise, it’s ironic that he applied for the motor pool when he joined the Army but his test results stated ‘no mechanical aptitude!
Dan Daigh told how Chuck had once outrun the police when driving to Bonneville and after being asked by the officer why he didn’t stop when being chased, he replied “Because I wasn’t out of gas then.”
