About Brett Lunger
Robert Brett Lunger (born November 14, 1945) is an American racecar driver. Lunger was educated at the Holderness School, and Princeton University. He dropped out of Princeton after three years to enlist for service in Vietnam. He was a political science major. At the time he was preparing a thesis on U.S. policy on Southeast Asia. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident refuted much of what Lunger contended in his writing. A former US Marine lieutenant who served in the Vietnam war, his racing career was mostly spent in privateer cars, paid for by his family wealth, as Lunger's mother, Jane du Pont Lunger, was an heiress to the Du Pont family fortune and a prominent racehorse breeder. Lunger participated in 43 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting in 1975, without scoring any championship points during his four seasons in Formula One. Lunger's Formula One career started alongside James Hunt in the Hesketh team, followed by a season with Surtees in 1976. For 1977, he started the season with a year-old March 761 run by Bob Sparshott and entered under the name of his sponsor, Chesterfield Racing, but switched to a McLaren M23 after three races. In 1978, he stayed with the McLaren M23 and also tried an M26, but now entered by Sparshott's racing outfit, BS Fabrications. After a one-off drive for Ensign at the end of the season, Lunger moved on to sports car racing. Lunger is also known for helping to rescue Niki Lauda from his burning Ferrari in 1976 at the Nürburgring. Redman won the Mid-Ohio Formula 5000 race in Lexington, Ohio, in June 1974.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.