Chuck Daigh has passed away (4/29/2008)

From Ed Moody

Chuck Daigh won the 1963 Players 200 at Mosport
 
Chuck Daigh passed away this morning. Chuck built hot rods prior to WW II and ran at the Dry Lakes. After his duty in the paratroopers he worked for Bill Stroppe preparing the famous Mexican road race Lincolns and riding as co-pilot in three of those races. He joined Pete DePaolo Engineering where he managed the west coast semi-factory Ford stock car team.

While at DePaolo's, he helped build the Battlebirds as well. He worked for the Rathmann Chevrolet NASCAR stock car team. After Rathmann's Chevrolet stock operations shut down he left to work building the Reventlow Scarab Sports Car and Formula One cars. In recent years he rebuilt two of the Reventlow F1 desmodromic valve motors for collectors.

As a driver, Chuck won the Willow Springs and Santa Barbara Sports Car Main events driving a Kurtis 500S - Lincoln that belonged to Frank Kurtis. He later won the Main Events at Paramount Ranch and Santa Barbara driving the Trountman-Barnes Ford powered sports car special. Chuck won several more big sports car races with the front engined Scarabs, including the Los Angeles Times Riverside Grand Prix in 1958.

He also won the big Nassau main event with a Scarab. Daigh drove for Ferrari at Le Mans and co-drove the winning Ferrari at Sebring one year. He later drove the Reventlow Formula One car in international races. Chuck tried to qualify at the Indianapolis 500 three times through the years but the cars were not good enough. Daigh also drove for Briggs Cunningham, with the Lister-Jaguars, a few times.

There are additional links about Daigh and his career here and here.