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Danas bi mu bio 58. rodjendan...

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He was his own car owner, chief mechanic and engine man, and in between all that work he found time to qualify for five consecutive Indianapolis 500s in the 1970s.

John Martin embodied the little guy in Gasoline Alley from the time he made his first laps as a rookie at the Speedway in 1971. He never had a new car or a big sponsor, but his determination equalized those disadvantages. He never won a race in his decade of trying (a fifth at Ontario was his best finish) but he won the respect of everyone and anyone who watched him take on the big boys at 16th & Georgetown.

At 80, he's still a workaholic – restoring Offenhauser engines and looking to run the SVRA race this summer.

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Roadster era to be celebrated at IMS Legends Day
Monday, 26 March 2018
By RACER Staff / Image by IMS Photo




The Roadster Era at the Indianapolis 500 will be celebrated with several activities on Legends Day presented by Firestone on Saturday, May 26 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Roadsters propelled several drivers to Indy 500 wins, including A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Bill Vukovich and Rodger Ward. Chassis designers and builders such as Quin Epperly, Frank Kurtis, Eddie Kuzma, Lujie Lesovsky and A.J. Watson became iconic figures in 500 history thanks to their roadster creations during this era.

"Few race cars of the Indianapolis 500 created more magical memories and nostalgia than the roadsters," IMS President J. Douglas Boles said. "The race reached an even higher level of interest due to the epic races by these evocative machines and the legendary names that drove and built them.

"We can't wait to celebrate this cherished era in May on Legends Day Honoring the Roadster Era with an incredible array of activities for fans of all ages. I know the camera on my phone will get a workout May 26!"

IMS will feature roadster displays facilitated by the IMS Museum and track laps by several roadsters.

Roadsters can be seen in April and May at the Indianapolis International Airport, and one of the cars will be displayed in the Fan Midway in the infield during the IndyCar Grand Prix, as well as during practice and qualifying days for the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil. Roadsters also can be viewed from May 24-26 at the IMS Museum's Historic Racing Exhibition, located under large tents just to the east of the Museum.

Legends Day Honoring the Roadster Era presented by Firestone will also feature autograph sessions with the full starting field for the 102nd running of the race, along with legends of the Indianapolis 500 and the traditional public drivers meeting at 10:30 a.m.

[/13/Ален Шмит/]

 

The secret to Jim Clark's speed

6-8 minutes

The method behind Jim Clark's talent

It’s a glimpse but a telling one.

Just over nine minutes into the below film of the 1965 French Grand Prix is footage of the top guns – bar an off-form Graham Hill – tackling a fast downhill left.

Of them Jim Clark is clearly fastest and clearly doing it his way.

The Lotus is 2-3ft inside the painted white line as Clark turns – it’s more of a sweep really – into the corner.

Jackie Stewart’s BRM P261 grazes that line; so does John Surtees’ V8 Ferrari; Dan Gurney’s Brabham BT11 crosses it; and Lorenzo Bandini’s flat-12 Ferrari straddles it.

Clark turns in much earlier and more sympathetically – Gurney’s stance is particularly aggressive – and sits across the road’s dotted centre line at a point where Stewart – grappling with more understeer than he would have liked – is still entirely to the right of it.

Beyond lies the only straight of note at Clermont-Ferrand – with 48 corners in its five sinuous miles – and Clark disappears from view carrying crucial extra speed.

He had hinted at his advantage in At the Wheel, published in 1964: “Most people run deep into a corner before turning the wheel. 

“In this way you can complete your braking in a straight line, as everyone recommends you do, before setting the car up for the corner.

“But I prefer to cut into the corner early and even with my brakes still on to set up the car earlier. 

“In this way I almost make a false apex because I get the power on early and try to drift the car through the true apex and continue with this sliding until I am set up for the next bit of straight.”

His was an evolution of the trail-braking that Stirling Moss used – also in a Lotus – during the latter stages of his career: an alliance of lessons learned and natural gifts for a new breed of GP car.

Moss – as the greats tend to be – was mystified as to why rivals did not attempt the same.

Clark was the first to do so – and took it to the next level: “The most important thing you can learn in racing: how to brake.

“It is considered that leaving your braking to the very last minute is important and I would agreed. But I would also say that where you take the brakes off again also matters.

“If I want to go through a given corner quicker I don’t necessarily put the brakes on any later than usual. But I might not put them on very hard and take them off earlier.

“It depends very much on how the car you are driving handles.”

It would appear that Clark – as was Alain Prost in the 1980s – was able to cope with an understeering set-up that flummoxed most others who tried it.

This made him easier on brakes, engine and tyres – as well as making him the man to beat at Indianapolis.

Compatriot, friend and rival Stewart – Robin to Clark’s Batman – had every reason therefore to copy this ability, this knack, this art, of doing just enough.

Watching Clark practice, going faster and faster, Stewart had once cried: “He doesn’t even use all of the road!”

Related

• The secret to Nuvolari's speed
• Jim Clark 50th anniversary timetable announced
• Driving through the pain

Stewart gained an insight into Clark’s MO when he replaced him at Kyalami’s non-championship Rand GP in December 1964.

(Clark had thrown out his back in a snowball fight at a Ford junket!)

Stewart qualified a brand new Lotus 33, chassis R10, on pole for his category debut and won the second 25-lap heat from the back after a driveshaft had broken at the start of the first.

“And it wasn’t that difficult if you know what I mean,” he says.

“That was concerning. I’d been testing the BRM a lot [he’d already signed for the Bourne-based team] at Snetterton. Having to balance its understeer against oversteer.

“The Lotus, you almost had to avoid overdriving it.

“Its grip and adhesion were unbelievable. It felt as though its centre of gravity was six inches below ground [rather than at track level].

“That news wasn’t totally well received at BRM.”

Thus Clark was extracting the most from the best equipment.

And he was absolutely at the top of his game in 1965 having led every lap from pole – and setting fastest lap – at the South African and Dutch GPs and leading all bar 10 laps of the Indy 500.

His French GP was not without troubles, on and off the track.

Chapman, delayed by a chance meeting with Yuri Gagarin at the airport, crashed their hire car into a ditch en route.

And then Clark’s practice at a circuit new to him was limited severely by suspension failure and problems with the 32-valve Coventry Climax V8.

Apparently and understandably feeling ‘niggly’, he hopped into the spare – R6, an updated 1963 car fitted with an old-spec 16-valver – and grabbed pole from Stewart by five-tenths.

Surprising rivals by electing to start from the left-hand side of the grid – being happy to take a tight line into that fast downhill left – he again led throughout.

Stewart gave spirited chase but Clark was always out of sight, away around the next bend.

“I didn’t know very much then and was driving by the seat of my pants,” admits Stewart.

“By the end of my career there were in my mind eight elements to every corner. In 1965 there were three: entry, apex and exit.

“And braking was a one-element experience. Well, it’s not.

“I was driving through subtleties and unbalancing the car as a result.

“I didn’t know enough about set-up. I had to rely on [chief engineer] Tony Rudd to try to make my car less reactionary. But he was devoted to Graham [Hill].

“Everybody loved Graham – he’d earned it and deserved it – but he was tough to work with and very insistent: the front end of his car was amazingly stiff.

“The people at BRM were very good, but not until I got into a Matra in 1968 did I know what I wanted and had developed my skills sufficiently to get it.”

Cruel fate – as it had with Moss and Clark – had denied us a great duel.

Next week Motor Sport online will be paying tribute to Jim Clark, to mark 50 years since his untimely death at Hockenheim. You can ensure you don't miss a thing by subscribing to the newsletter below. And don't forget, the Jim Clark Museum is holding a weekend of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary.

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McLaren MP4/4: The launch of a legend
5:59 AM ET
Maurice Hamilton


As pre-season hype is consigned to the bin, it's worth recalling that, around this time 30 years ago, one of the greatest F1 cars ever turned a wheel for the first time and the outside world knew next to nothing about it. And those who did -- Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and the McLaren -- were thrilled to bits with what they found.

The 1988 season did not get under way until the Brazilian Grand Prix on April 4. This being the final year before a complete switch to 3.5-litre normally aspirated engines, season previews suggested a swingeing fuel capacity reduction to 150 litres would ensure a limp swansong for the turbo, never mind the fact that McLaren were switching from the TAG-turbo to the Honda V6.

But pundits reckoned without the engineering and design brilliance of Gordon Murray, Steve Nichols, Bob Bell and Neil Oatley, never mind Honda's refusal to take their foot off the gas after winning the title with Williams in 1987.

McLaren's rivals had been heartened by news from pre-season running, as the test mule -- basically a 1987 MP4/3 with the Porsche-inspired V6 swapped for the Honda -- proved difficult and off the pace. Ferrari and the rest were feeling optimistic, coupled with the hope that Senna would need time to become accustomed to his new surroundings following a move from Lotus.

This was in the days of unlimited testing, McLaren's struggle with the test hack continuing until the last minute at Imola. Then a red and white truck rolled into the paddock and disgorged the first MP4/4. Lower than anything seen before in F1, the simple, clean appearance on the surface made an immediate impression before the car had so much as turned a wheel. Indy Lall, in charge of McLaren's test team, vividly recalls the moment.

"We'd had a horrendous time with the hybrid car from 1987," says Lall. "This was the final test before Brazil and, while we were there with this awful car, the race team arrived MP4/4 -- and it just looked the bollocks.

"We were knackered and we were just sort of shovelled into the corner because Ayrton didn't want to know about the old car any more -- and you can't blame him. It gives me goose bumps to this day when I think about what happened next. The MP4/4 went on track and the lap times just went quicker and quicker and quicker. It was getting dark -- and Ayrton didn't want to stop. It was an absolutely amazing experience."

McLaren's quiet optimism would be confirmed a couple of days later when Senna put the car on pole in Rio, with Prost, finding difficulty settling into the laid-back driving position, qualifying on the second row. The unfinished third MP4/4 had been loaded into the hold of the Wednesday evening Varig flight to Rio, the rush to complete all three cars taking its toll on race day.

Senna's gear linkage (paddle-shift semi-automatic boxes were still a year away) became deranged on the parade lap. The partisan crowd were in for further disappointment when their hero was disqualified for starting from the pit lane in the spare car.

The McLaren mechanics, having worked until 2 am on Friday, 3 am on Saturday and 5.30 am on Sunday, had barely enough time to return to the hotel for a shower and fresh uniforms prior to the race morning warm-up at 8.30 am. But there would be more than adequate reward as Prost, making the most of the grid space ahead vacated by Senna, led from start to finish.

It was to the beginning of an extraordinary season for MP4/4. McLaren would win 15 of the 16 races to claim almost three times as many points as Ferrari in second place.

McLaren must today recall such domination with a mix of pride and envy. We may have moved on massively in 30 years but it would do no harm for the FIA and Liberty Media to consider the McLaren-Honda MP4/4 as a template for how a F1 car really ought to look.

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Tracy, Mario found different fortunes in 1993 Phoenix race
Wednesday, 04 April 2018
By Marshall Pruett (words and images)




A pair of 25th anniversaries span the next two weekends of IndyCar racing. Thanks to a lot of effort by the folks at ISM Raceway, the event surrounding Saturday night's Verizon IndyCar Series race in Phoenix has been transformed into a throwback celebration at the venue where Mario Andretti scored his final IndyCar win. And when we head to Long Beach the following weekend, we'll hit the quarter-century mark since Paul Tracy took his first victory in the former CART IndyCar series.

Taking nothing away from Mario's triumph in the desert, we came close to celebrating the 25th anniversary of Tracy's first and second wins on consecutive weekends back in 1993 but, as the lap chart shows, PT only completed 161 of the requisite 200 tours around the one-mile Phoenix oval.

With a staggering two-lap lead over the entire field, the budding star was in his own world with the No. 12 Penske PC22-Chevy. True domination like Tracy authored was produced by the aggressive intensity that would go on to become his greatest strength and weakness in the years ahead. Despite holding a two-mile advantage, PT kept the afterburners lit, but his breakthrough performance was unwound by a mis-timed pass on his close friend Jimmy Vasser in Turn 1. As the tail of the PC22 went around and pitched PT backward into the barrier, the Canadian phenom's big date with Victory Lane was rescheduled.

"I was going into the turn when I came up on [Vasser's car], which was going slower," he told On Track magazine after the race. "He moved over, I thought to give me room to pass. I took my line and committed going into the turn. Then he came down and I had to pinch off the corner and back off. At that point, the car spun."

Vasser, in a separate post-race interview, said Tracy's version of the incident was different from his own.

"I guess some people are saying I had something to do with Tracy's crash," he said. "I don't think we were involved. I saw him coming in my mirrors, but when I got to the turn, I never saw a wheel or a wing to the side. I thought he was going to pass me on the outside coming out of [Turn 2]."

As the safety crew cleaned up PT's expansive debris field, Penske teammate Emerson Fittipaldi assumed the lead behind the pace car. When the race went green on Lap 171, the Brazilian sprinted away from Andretti in second, but what Fittipaldi didn't know was the back of his PC22 had been hit by some of the debris from Tracy's car. By the time he reached Turn 3, his car spun and smacked the wall.

"It didn't appear to be a problem while we were running under the yellow, but after the restart, as I approached Turn 3 the car vibrated and I lost control," Fittipaldi said.

The fratricide ruined Roger Penske's day as Tracy's surefire win turned sour, and his second entry – poised to capitalize on PT's mistake – returned dangling from a tow truck after broken parts from one PC22 took out the other...



With clear road ahead on the final restart, Andretti was left in a prime position to capture his first win of the 1990s.

"I figured you put it together and it might be a good second place today, because Emerson was going quick enough," he said 25 years ago. "That's when a little prayer of thanks went to the man upstairs. I didn't know what happened to [Fittipaldi], but oh my gosh, I can't believe this. But sometimes that's motor racing and that's the way it goes."

Dick Simon Racing's Raul Boesel would follow Mario home one lap down in second, and Vasser, still in the early stages of his IndyCar career, earned his best result to date with a trip to the podium in third, three laps arrears for Hayhoe/Simon Racing.

Andretti readily admits his final Indy car win was a fortuitous happening at the age of 53. But if we consider how many times the phrase "And Mario's slowing down" was uttered throughout the years, the parting gift from Tracy was, in some sense, an overdue present after all the big wins that were surrendered.

"I saw a couple crashes in front of me which I kind of liked, especially since the guys didn't get hurt which helped me anyway, but I felt that, in all honesty, I lost some races like that and I think that win was a little bit of a gift for sure, and you could see that," the racing icon told RACER. "But at least I was there to capitalize and that's it. But I think at the age that I was, I still felt that I was still competitive and that was important for me. Still very precious."

With some time to reflect on Phoenix 1993, Tracy has come to appreciate the outcome for what it has come to mean for Andretti and IndyCar racing as a whole.

"I guess I could say I handed Mario the last win of his career," he said on the Week In IndyCar podcast. "I threw it away ... it was just another piece of the puzzle of my career, and I can say I went on to the next week at Long Beach and got my first win at the Long Beach Grand Prix, so I can't complain."



As someone who has been bestowed with countless awards and honors, Andretti was surprisingly moved by ISM Raceway's grand production to celebrate his last IndyCar victory.

"It's amazing," he said. "I'm so totally, totally flattered about this because, again, I know it's all promotion and that's what it's all about, but at the same time the way they're doing it, the way I understand what they're doing for it and just helping celebrate, obviously, something that's very important to me and knowing how Phoenix as a venue was so, so instrumental in my career because of all the tests, so much testing that we did there and so forth.

"All of a sudden, having this coming back, this celebration, and obviously showcasing or giving me this type of recognition, it's beyond what I could ever expect. Obviously, [i] never expect [it], but that's what's beautiful about our sport."

And while some have mistakenly characterized Phoenix 1993 as Andretti's last racing win, it's worth noting that the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995 owns that distinction. The 55-year-old Mario came home second overall with Eric Helary and the late Bob Wollek, and first in the WSC class, driving a Courage C34-Porsche prototype, which stands as his farewell to the top step of the podium.

"That's right!" he said with a smile. "But nobody gives me credit for a win there ... 'that was a class win.' I have the first place trophy in my trophy case. A class win is still win, right?"

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Pre 25 godina, poslednji trijumf Maria Andretija:

 

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April 7, 1968: Jim Clark Killed in Hockenheim Crash
 

Fifty years ago, one of the most naturally talented motor racing drivers of all time died when Jim Clark’s Lotus-Cosworth left the wet track at Hockenheim — in a relatively inconsequential F2 race — at 140 mph and hit a tree.





Clark’s death was a bitter blow for the racing community; Lotus team boss Colin Chapman and Clark’s team mate Graham Hill were said to be devastated, though Hill would go on to take the 1968 Formula 1 title, which he dedicated to his friend’s memory.

The Scot, who won the F1 title for Lotus in 1963 and 1965, was considered one of the safest and most ‘natural’ drivers on the circuit, and many of his fellow racers expressed doubt that driver error had caused the crash. A deflated rear tyre was widely blamed for the incident.

[alberto.ascari]

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Jim Clark's mechanic Sims recalls the Scot's final race
Saturday, 07 April 2018
Marshall Pruett / Images by Jutta Fausel




Dave "Beaky" Sims was 27 years old when his driver, two-time Formula 1 world champion Jim Clark, died in the Formula 2 car he prepared. Today, the veteran mechanic and team manager is better known as the silver-haired man behind Risi Competizione's illustrious sports car operation, and at 76, he owns his years with pride.

Despite all he's seen across six decades in motor racing, the shattering events of April 7, 1968, have never faded for the Briton. Clark, the Scottish farmer, was his era's Lewis Hamilton and Mario Andretti combined in a devastatingly lithe frame. Effortless speed was his trademark as Clark's gifts brought immense success in his primary home with grand prix racing, and his versatility – allied with supreme mechanical sympathy – earned trips to Victory Lane at the Indy 500 and numerous sports car events.

Regarded as the unassailable best by his rivals, the death of the world's greatest driver in a rainy, second-tier Formula 2 round held at the Hockenheim circuit was simply incomprehensible.

Speaking just before the anniversary, Sims is transported back a half-century to a day where Team Lotus was represented by only four people at the track cut inside a German forest. Clark had Beaky on his F2 car, 1962 F1 title-winner Graham Hill had Mike "Carnoustie" Gregory looking after his entry, and together, the young mechanics were wholly unprepared to process all that was about to take place.

"When he went missing, we didn't know," Sims said. "Did he break down? The course car came around and [a track marshal] said, 'Jim Clark mechanic, mechanic?' I said, 'What's the problem?' 'Crash. Car crash.' I said, 'Oh.' We got there, and I saw an ambulance, and then I was going – being young, 'Is he OK?' 'Can't say.' Then I saw the car. I thought, oh... Nothing left of it. No gearbox and engine. Well, where is it? Where's the engine and gearbox? Oh, through the woods. It scythed through the woods after he hit the tree obviously, and then the shock took in. I said, 'Can I see him?' He says, no.

"It was something that... it will never be forgotten in my head because I didn't believe what I was seeing. You heard the stories about how 'I don't believe what I saw.' Well, I didn't. I thought, this is a bad dream. I can't believe this is right. Where is he? I said, 'Where is Jimmy?' I looked at the car, and I said ... what do I do? I was in shock. I didn't know what shock was, but I certainly felt pale and a bit sick, nausea actually, and I thought, what do I do? Because the race was still going on."

Unsure of the cause that led to Clark's crash, Hill became Beaky's immediate priority. Without Team Lotus owner Colin Chapman in attendance, the stately Englishman would step in and guide the junior mechanics in the aftermath.

"Graham was still going around, so I asked the marshal who took me in the pace car, 'Can you call the pits and tell Michael Gregory the mechanic [to] tell Graham to come in? Please, in, in, in,'" he said. "They shortened the race, and then I was still [out] there. Then Graham came out and he says, 'All right. OK, Beaky, what we've got to do, get the truck here, get it loaded.' We got another team, a couple of mechanics to help load all the wreckage in, and Graham Hill was a god of organization, because what do I do?



"Graham said, 'OK, come and sit with me for five minutes, calm down.' He said, 'This is what we're going to do. OK?' And I just went under Graham's directions, and we got all the stuff back into the truck and back to the paddock. He said, 'Don't open the truck to anybody,' because it was all – it was just bits and pieces and stuff. He had to go and identify Jimmy. Someone had to identify someone who has died. Then me in Carnoustie, we went back to the hotel in the truck and then with the police. The police car said, 'You can't leave the place. You can't leave Germany.' Yeah, it was a law. Death. Yes. It's murder, manslaughter."

Stuck in a mounting nightmare, Sims boss arrived and briefly went on the warpath before an escape plan was hatched.

"Basically, Chapman arrived at one in the morning," he continued. "We were still up, and he went and he said, 'What the hell have you done?' I said, 'Jesus. It was a crash.' He says, 'Right. OK.' Graham was there, and Graham told him to calm down. Let's get this sorted. Chapman said, 'Well, I want the truck out of here now.' I said, 'We can't. The police car's in front of it.' He said, 'I don't care. We've got to get it out of Germany.' A half an hour later, the little Volkswagen police car disappeared. It just went, so me and Carnoustie, [Chapman] jumped up and says, 'Get going.' We go, 'OK.' We said, 'we'll keep off the autobahns and go west. Go to the coast, make for Zeebrugge, Belgium."

As the news of Clark's death spread throughout Europe, making it to Zeebrugge on the Belgian coast to hire a boat that would transport the Team Lotus truck home to England should have been the first stretch of normalcy for the mechanics. Another morbid encounter followed.

"And we got there and we went up over to Spa. We come to Spa-Francorchamps. It was a big map, so we went, took another little hill up, climbing, climbing, climbing, and we come to a red barrier, a red and white barrier: Customs. Nobody there," he said.

"We opened it up and drove through in no man's land. Then we got to, Belgium, so we get – nonstop all the way. We find on the map, Zeebrugge. Got to Zeebrugge, and the [boat] guy said, 'Yeah, tickets. Tickets. Jim Clark?' 'Yeah, teammates.' 'I want to look, take a photo.' I said, 'No, you can't." He said, 'OK, no photograph, no boat. No ship. You have 30 minutes,' after he shut the gate of the boat.

"I said to Carnoustie, 'We can't do it.' I opened the door, and I said, 'That's it. It's just a mess. There's nothing. There's canvas covered over the car anyway.' He took some [photos] and said, 'Go, go, go.' We got on the boat and we got there. The English police was waiting for us at [at the port]. They said, 'No, we're just escorting you [home] because there's a lot of press and people going on.' I had to stay outside of [the Lotus base at] Hethel for 48 hours--some law.

"But then we got it back in, unloaded it all. Chapman sent the engine to Cosworth, the gearbox to Hewland, and all the broken bits and pieces, whatever was left, went to Farnborough Aircraft and they found nothing cracked, all the bolts were still in the wishbones. Engine was good. It didn't seize. Gearbox was nothing seized."

The forensic approach in deconstructing Clark's crash helped to absolve Sims of any negligence, but the investigation's findings couldn't spare him from the tabloids.

"The tires went to Firestone. That's where the right rear deflation, they said, was the cause of the accident," he explained. "Three days later, I went to work, and of course everybody was saying, 'Am I the bad guy?' Because certain British newspapers said, 'Mechanic left bolts loose.' Definitely there was bad media, but then they got over that and then I went in and Chapman called me in.



"I said, 'Well, what do I do now?' He said, 'What do you mean, what are you going to do?' I said, 'Well, what do I do? I'm Jimmy's mechanic on the car and he's dead. What do I do?' He said, 'What do you do? You're going to Jarama tomorrow, you and so-and-so, towing Graham's new chassis down for the Grand Prix.' He said, 'You know, come on. Get your act together.' I towed it down with another guy to Madrid the next day with a van, a van and a trailer. It was Graham's spare car for the race."

Chapman's tough-love approach was countered by Sims' fellow mechanics who recognized the shock had yet to fade.

"That was a big plus," he added. "All the mechanics that were Jimmy's mechanics long before I was in Formula 1, Indy cars, saloon cars, sports cars, guys – there was Bob Sparshott, Sid Carr, Dougie Bridge, and all the Kiwis and the Aussies. They were tremendous. That would've been the end of my career if it had gone the other way because to this day, I can't really explain how I felt."

At the time, Chapman's call to get Beaky back out on the road proved to be a necessary tonic.

"I think if I'd have been side loaded and not traveling, I think I would've probably gone back to the garage as a mechanic," he said. "But because some of the guys there had lost people before, they were really, really helpful to the point of, OK, let's get on with it and you're going tomorrow. Get home and have a bath. Get changed and be ready to go early in the morning. So-and-so's got your Dover tickets and then this is where you're going to, Jarama. You've never been there. You've got to do this, do that. All of a sudden, responsibility was back on and you were doing it, and your mind had to focus on that. Really, that really helped me. The guys were unbelievable."

Always on the move, always something to do. Those searing memories from the forest to keep at bay. The downside of Chapman's plan is that, after fifty years of mourning, Sims has yet to reconcile the events of April 7, 1968. Considering all the world lost with Clark's death, spare a though for his friend and mechanic whose mind is rarely far from Hockenheim.

"I don't think I ever have, and I don't think I ever will," he concedes. "I can go to bed sometimes after a hard day at the track or anywhere these days. Tomorrow will be a bad day for me, remembrance. I can never get it out of my head. I don't think I ever will."

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Memories of Jimmy at the Brickyard
Saturday, 07 April 2018
Robin Miller / Images by IMS; John Mahoney




Fifty years ago the unfathomable happened in Hockenheim, Germany when Jimmy Clark lost his life in a Formula 2 race. It shocked the entire racing world – not just in Formula 1 – because the Flying Scot had also left a most impressive mark at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In five starts, he led four races for 298 laps and came close to scoring three wins instead of his lone triumph in 1965. But earning the respect of USAC's oval-track stars ranked right up there with the drinking the milk in Victory Lane.

"I wasn't real found of the Brits in general but I liked Clark," said A.J. Foyt. "He drove hard but clean and I had a lot of respect for him because he raced at Milwaukee and Trenton too.

"When I knocked him off the pole in '65 and said over the PA that I brought the record back to the USA I got a big ovation but Clark came down and shook my hand and I thought that was pretty damn nice."

Beginning with his rookie run in 1963, when he finished second to Parnelli Jones, Clark was always a factor except his final start in 1967.

"I never gave those F1 guys a lot of respect and neither did A.J. because we were the rough, tough bullies and they were those polite road racers with funny accents that thought they were better than everyone else," said Jones.

"But Jimmy was different, he was a real nice guy and he caught on to oval racing pretty quick. We were impressed because he was a helluva talent."

Dan Gurney persuaded Lotus' boss Colin Chapman, Ford and his rival/pal Clark to try Indy in 1963 and the rear-engine revolution was off and running.

"I think no matter who you are the first time you go there it's a pretty daunting situation and, initially, Jimmy wasn't sure and it took a while for him to get dialed in," said Gurney back in 2014 about his Lotus teammate in 1963 [below] and '64.



"But he loved to race and he wasn't worried about protecting his reputation, he liked a challenge, and if he drove a car that wasn't good, he made it look good.

"Indy also offered him a chance to make five or six times the money he could in Formula 1, so that was part of the allure."

But turning left for three hours at sustained speeds in between walls was as foreign to Clark, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham and Jackie Stewart as a breaded tenderloin out of West 16th Street.

"I think Jim's style, smooth, clean and gentle was a good fit for Indianapolis," said Stewart, who embarked on Indy in 1966 and came within 10 laps of winning as a rookie. "He laid the groundwork for us F1 guys coming to Indianapolis and showed it could be done."

Gurney countered that theory. "People always said he was so smooth but Jimmy ran it on the edge and extracted the maximum out of the car," he said. "He was an edge man and his tail was out a lot of the time. And he wasn't so calculating, he was a hell-bent-for-election kind of guy. And if you were a spectator, you couldn't take your eyes off him."

In '63, Clark led 29 laps and finished 33 seconds behind Jones in a race cloaked in controversy because of the oil leak in Old Calhoun that nearly got Rufus black-flagged. The runner-up showed no ill-will, and congratulated Parnelli afterward.

The following May he captured the pole position and led early before suspension failure KO'd him, but in 1965 he was in another time zone. He led 190 of the 200 laps, and beat Jones to the checkered flag by almost two minutes.

In 1966, he fought and ill-handling car and spun twice without making any wall contact but still led 66 laps and was pulling into Victory Lane when he noticed Hill (who he'd lapped once) was already there. Chapman considered protesting and figured USAC simply missed scoring Clark a lap but many people thought the wrong driver was given the win.

The following year, Clark started 16th in a year-old car and was never in the hunt for the first time; retiring with a burned piston.

In the spring of 1968 he tested the new wedge Lotus 56 for Andy Granatelli at IMS [below], just a couple of weeks before his death.

"Jimmy was enthused after driving it," recalls Jones, who was in attendance that day. "He thought it had a lot of potential and he was excited about coming back in May.

"And that was the last time we ever saw him."

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

John Miles 1943-2018
Monday, 09 April 2018
RACER Staff / Image by LAT




Former Team Lotus driver John Miles has died at the age of 74.

A multiple championship winner in assorted British sportscar series during the 1960s, Miles's Formula 1 opportunity came when neither of Graham Hill nor Jochen Rindt wanted any part of developing the Lotus 63 4WD, which they believed to be too dangerous. Miles made his F1 debut in the car in the 1969 French GP, dropping out when the fuel pump failed, and made four other appearances in the 63 over the remainder of the year, registering his only finish with a 10th at Silverstone.

When Hill left the team at the end of the season Miles was promoted to No.2 behind Rindt. He spent the first part of the year switching between the 49C and the early anti-dive and anti-squat suspension incarnation of the 72, but his results, while decent, were a clear step down on Rindt's, and Colin Chapman was increasingly beginning to view new arrival Emerson Fittipaldi as the team's future. This, Miles told Motor Sport magazine years later, was reflected in his pay packet:

"I had no money at all: he paid me £300 a race, and out of that I had to pay my own expenses. Once, flying back from a race, I was so broke I had to ask him if he could give me some money. He pulled a big roll out of his pocket, peeled off a few notes and gave them to me. He regarded me as a sort of grease monkey."

The internal drama within Lotus came to a head at the fateful 1970 Italian Grand Prix, where Miles described a heated argument between himself and Chapman on the Saturday evening over Chapman's insistence on removing the 72's wings to capitalize on Monza's long straights.

"Colin's actual words to me were, 'The only way you're going to go quick is to take the wings off your car'," he told Motor Sport. "I said, 'Maybe so, Colin, if we had time to sort the car out properly to run without wings. But as it is now I cannot drive that car without wings'. He said, 'You'll do as I say'."

The following morning, Rindt was killed when he suffered an apparent brake shaft failure and crashed at the Parabolica during practice. Lotus withdrew from the race and also missed the Canadian Grand Prix, and Miles was preparing to return to the track at Watkins Glen when he received a call from team manager Peter Warr telling him that he'd been replaced by Reine Wisell.

Miles declined an offer to race for Lotus in F5000 instead, and after a brief stint at BRM, where he was primarily deplyed as a development driver, he turned his attention to sports cars again before retiring from competition in the mid-1970s.

After his driving career was over, Miles moved into engineering, switched to journalism, and then returned to engineering again, first with Lotus Engineering, then Aston Martin, and later with Multimatic. He also founded a record label that specialized in British jazz.