Duncan Dayton (born April 28, 1959 in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

) is an entrepreneur, former racing driver and racing team owner. Dayton raced in various formula racing and sportscar racing series. Currently, Dayton is the owner of

Highcroft Racing Highcroft Racing was an American auto racing team based out of Danbury, Connecticut and founded by driver Duncan Dayton in 1989. Initially founded for Dayton's involvement in historic motorsport, specifically the restoration and preparation of cla ...

Racing career

Dayton started racing in

Formula Continental Formula Continental is a single seater, open wheel racing class in motorsport. It replaced Formula C as an SCCA racing class. Most Formula Continental's are Formula Ford 2000 (FF2000) models, which is a flat bottomed, steel tube frame open wh ...

in 1990. The Minnesota born driver made his debut in the

SCCA The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) is a non-profit American automobile club and sanctioning body supporting road racing, rallying, and autocross in the United States. Formed in 1944, it runs many programs for both amateur and professional r ...

sanctioned American Continental Championship in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

. Throughout his F2000 Dayton made a record breaking 53 race starts between 1994 and 1998, a record broken in 2004 by Scott Rubenzer. The 1997 season was his most successful. The driver won his only race during the Desert Star Classic weekend at

Phoenix International Raceway Phoenix Raceway is a 1-mile, low-banked tri-oval race track located in Avondale, Arizona, near Phoenix. The motorsport track opened in 1964 and currently hosts two NASCAR race weekends annually including the final championship race since 2020. P ...

. With another two podium finishes Dayton placed his

entered

Van Diemen Van Diemen International, Ltd. was a British race car manufacturer based in Snetterton, Norfolk, United Kingdom. The company had a reputation for high-volume production runs of its cars, the most well-known of which is its series of Formula For ...

in third place in the championship. For 1998 Dayton returned for the full 1998 season in a Bowman BC5 with only one top ten finish.

Highcroft Racing

Dayton founded Highcroft Racing as a team to compete and maintain historic racing cars. Dayton won the first

Historic Grand Prix of Monaco The Historic Grand Prix of Monaco (also called the Monaco Historic Grand Prix depending upon the source) is a series of automotive races focussed on historic motorsport. The event is typically held biennially two weeks before the Formula One Grand ...

in a

Climax Climax may refer to: Language arts * Climax (narrative), the point of highest tension in a narrative work * Climax (rhetoric), a figure of speech that lists items in order of importance Biology * Climax community, a biological community th ...

powered Lola Mk4. Dayton won the race again in 2000, in a Brabham BT11. He later won the race in 2002 and 2004. He won a total of ten Monaco Grand Prix in different historic classes between 1997 and 2010. In 2006 Dayton expanded into the

American Le Mans Series The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The American Le Mans' hea ...

entering a

MG-Lola EX257 The MG-Lola EX257 (sometimes referred to as simply MG EX257) is a Le Mans Prototype built by Lola for the MG car company for their attempt to compete again at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in . The car has had many years of mixed success since its in ...

. The owner/driver competed at the

2006 12 Hours of Sebring The 2006 12 Hours of Sebring was the 54th running of this event, and took place on March 18, 2006. The race was sponsored by Mobil 1 and was the opening race of the 2006 American Le Mans Series season run by IMSA. This race marked the first ti ...

with

Gregor Fisken Gregor Fisken is a British racing driver and businessman (born 28 September 1964) who currently races historic and modern-day sportscars. He is one of only a handful of racing drivers to have driven in all four classes (LMP1, LMP2, GT1 and GT2) ...

and Rick Knoop. The team did not finish after a mechanical failure. The team competed the full 2006 American Le Mans Series season with a third place at

Petit Le Mans The Petit Le Mans ( French for ''little Le Mans'') is a sports car endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, USA. It uses the rules established for the 24 Hours of Le Mans by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), which a ...

as highlight. In 2012 Dayton, and Highcroft Racing, stepped into the

Nissan , trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...

NISMO , abbreviated as Nismo, is a division of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing focused in motorsport and performance-oriented car models for Nissan. Nismo was initially a company, , formed in 1984 as a result of a merger of two motorsport departmen ...

backed

DeltaWing The DeltaWing is a racing car designed by American race car designer and engineer Ben Bowlby and debuted at the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans. The entry was run under the Project 56 name, composed of Ben Bowlby (design), Dan Gurney's All American R ...

project.

Personal

Dayton is a graduate of

Connecticut College Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...

and the

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...

. While at Connecticut College Duncan, and his brother Judson, put forward the idea of putting an icehockey rink on campus. The building was possible, in part, of donations through his family's trust.

Family

Dayton was born to a wealthy and philanthropic family. His father, Ken Dayton, was the director of the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. His great-grandfather,

George Dayton George Draper Dayton (March 6, 1857 – February 18, 1938) was an American businessman and philanthropist, most famous for being the founder of Dayton's department store, which later became Target Corporation. Life and career Dayton was born ...

, was the founder of the company that would evolve into

Target Corporation Target Corporation (doing business as Target and stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh largest retailer in the United States, and a compon ...

. First cousin of Duncan Dayton is

Mark Dayton Mark Brandt Dayton (born January 26, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Minnesota from 2011 to 2019. He was a United States Senator for Minnesota from 2001 to 2007, and the Minnesota State Auditor from 1991 to 1 ...

, a former

Governor of Minnesota The governor of Minnesota is the head of government of the U.S. state of Minnesota, leading the state's executive branch. Forty people have been governor of Minnesota, though historically there were also three governors of Minnesota Territory. ...

Motorsports results

American Open-Wheel racing results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in ''italics'' indicate fastest race lap)

American Continental Championship results

USAC FF2000 National Championship results

USF2000 National Championship

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dayton, Duncan 1959 births Racing drivers from Minneapolis Racing drivers from Minnesota People from Minneapolis U.S. F2000 National Championship drivers 12 Hours of Sebring drivers American Le Mans Series drivers Living people Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni Connecticut College alumni