subject: Corvette Racing Legend: Dick Guldstrand [print this page] Corvette Racing Legend: Dick Guldstrand Corvette Racing Legend: Dick Guldstrand
Dick Guldstrand was supposed to become a lawyer; that is if his parents got their wish. His parents didn't get their wish, but Guldstrand himself eventually did. While working in the lucrative field of aerospace, he held tight to one dream and one dream only; he wanted to race Corvettes.
In no time at all Guldstrand had landed himself a sponsor in the way of H.E. Baher who owned a Chevrolet dealership in Hermosa Beach, California. His fast paced driving skills coupled with the fuel injection Corvette saw him win most of the West Coast BP events that he entered in the early 1960s. Baher was so pleased with Guldstrand's success that he bought one of the first Sting Rays in the fall of 1962 for Guldstrand to race.
In 1963 Guldstrand would begin to cement his name into the history books of both racing and Corvette legends as well. From 1963-1965 Guldstrand dominated the Pacific Coast division of the SCCA winning the championship all three years. In 1966 he visited Daytona and raced in the 24 hour race and he and his team mates won the GT-class division and placed ninth overall. The next year in 1967 he and his team mates lead 13 hours of the 24 hours of LeMans en route to another GT win. It seemed no matter what he drove, he won in.
If it was a Corvette, Guldstrand wanted to race it. Because he was so good at what he did it wasn't hard to find takers that wanted him to pilot their Vettes. In 1966 and 1967 Guldstrand raced in the 12 hours of Sebring for legendary car owner Roger Penske who had Guldstrand behind the wheel of the ultra impressive Grand Sport Corvette. AS in any other Corvette he drove, Guldstrand would make the competition eat his dust in the Grand Sport as well.
In 1968 he founded Guldstrand Engineering Inc and began right away to start building high performance cars to race. He had enormous success and by the early 1970s Guldstrand Engineering Inc was building about 70 percent of all road racing vehicles in the West Coast that were Chevy powered.
He would continue to build, develop, and race and set some records along the way like in 1985 when he piloted the then new Corvette to a first and second overall track record at mid Ohio. Two of his more notable creations are the GS-80 and the GS-90 which are modified Corvettes that really go all out. The GS-90 is still available to this day on a build to order basis.
Yet for all he has done for racing and the Corvette Dick Guldstrand will tell you that it is he who is in awe of the Corvette. His speedy tinkering ways are still going strong today and it seems the older he gets, the faster he is able to make Corvettes go. In 1999 he was recognized as a true Corvette great and inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame where he sits deservingly so with so many legendary Corvette names.
