The roars of the crowd have long faded, the whine of engines and the screech of brakes have dissipated into the air. The glory days have come and gone with a speed that blurs vision, compromises rational thought.
But the life and work of Jim Clark resounds down the ages, safeguarded and preserved by those who knew and loved him. There is much myth and legend to the life of the great Scot. There is also irrefutable fact.
The clock has sped on but Clark remains one of the greatest drivers ever. There is much evidence to support this contention but an examination of the year of 1965 would be more than ample evidence.
Sixty years ago on this day, Clark, the farmer from Chirnside, won the Indianapolis 500, breaking a North American stranglehold on the race. He also won the Tasman Series, held in Australia and New Zealand, with a Lotus 32B.
As an encore, he won six consecutive races in Formula 1, becoming world champion for the second time. He also was also named a Freeman of Duns, an award which would have given him profound joy.
‘Jim knew himself as a farmer,’ says Doug Niven, his cousin. ‘His gravestone read Jim Clark OBE. The first line is “Farmer”, the second line is “world racing champion”. He was so unassuming. He had no airs and graces.
Jim Clark salutes the crowd at the Brickyard after his Indianapolis 500 win in 1965
Clark raises an arm in celebration after ending the North American stranglehold on the race
Away from the track, Clark loved nothing more than attending country shows with his livestock
‘The week after Monza, his first world championship in 1963, he was selling sheep at local sales in Kelso.’
The anniversary of the Indy 500 triumph demands recognition and the Jim Clark Trust has helped to deliver it. On June 28/29, 14 of the great man’s cars will be at an event at Duns Castle as fans, friends, former mechanics and colleagues gather for a weekend of celebration.
Niven’s memories of that day of the Indy 500 triumph are sharp. Now 79 and a family trustee of the JCT, he recalls life as a teenager in the Border farmlands.
‘I am his first cousin. Jim’s mother and my father were brother and sister. I lived in Jim’s house when he was away racing,’ he says. ‘Our farm was seven miles from his and when he was away — and increasingly he was away a lot — his mother and father asked me to live in the house to keep an eye on it.
‘I was a schoolboy when he started racing,’ says Niven, who went on to become a fine racing driver as well as a successful farmer. ‘When he came home, Jim wasn’t that interested in talking about cars. He wanted to talk about the farm.’
Niven recalls May 31, 1965. The world of television was restricted, primitive by today’s standards.
Clark in his Ford-built Lotus 38 on his way to that memorable Indy 500 win in 1965
‘I went with Jim’s parents to the Odeon Cinema in Edinburgh and watched the race in the middle of the night. It was all in a grainy black and white.’
The flickering images conveyed a substantial victory. Clark, driving a rear-engined Lotus 38, led 190 laps at an average speed of just more than 150mph. History had been made. Clark was to add another chapter that same season, becoming the first and only driver to win the Formula 1 Championship and the Indy 500 in the same season.
Within three years, he was dead. On April 7, 1968, his car somersaulted into a wood at Hockenheim during a Formula 2 race. Jim Clark, racing champion and mixed arable farmer, did not survive. He was 32.
His legacy lives on. The Jim Clark Trust is dedicated to promoting and celebrating his story. There is a museum in Duns and it is hoped that events such as the one at the castle at the end of June will help raise funds to expand it. There are more cars to be housed, more memorabilia to be displayed. The Clark story encompasses 25 individual grand prix victories and success in touring cars and rallying.
But today all roads lead back to Indiana in 1965.
Clark back on the farm in Berwickshire in his favoured mode of transport
The voice is strong, The champion is vibrant. Mario Andretti, now 85, won the F1 championship in 1978, also with Lotus, and the Indy 500 in 1968. He was named rookie of the year after finishing behind Clark in the Indy 500 of 1965.
In a message recorded for the events at Duns Castle, the American says: ‘It’s amazing 60 years on we are still celebrating the legacy of Jim Clark. Going back to 1965. I have something very, very special to tell you because it had so much meaning to a young rookie.’
The racer remembers being enthralled by the very presence of Clark. ‘He was my senior, already well accomplished. I took the opportunity to get to meet him and to pick his brain as much as possible about Formula 1.’
After the race, where Andretti finished third, he talked to the Scot at the victory banquet. ‘As we were saying our goodbyes, Jim and Colin Chapman were standing there and I said: “Colin, one day I would like to do Formula 1.
‘I looked at Jim and he gave me a nod. Colin looked at me and said: “Mario, when you think you are ready, I will have a car for you”.’ Andretti later collaborated with Chapman and Lotus for spectacular F1 success.
Chapman, the design and engineering genius who founded Lotus in 1952, was central to Clark’s success, particularly at the Indy 500. ‘They had to build a car specific to that track,’ explains Stuart McFarlane, broadcaster, sports historian and a volunteer at the Jim Clark Trust. ‘It took a maverick like Colin to come up with such a car.’
Mario Andretti has paid tribute to his former racing rival Clark for the upcoming exhibition
It took a driver such as Clark to win the race. McFarlane paints the scene of 60 years ago. ‘It’s the famous Brickyard track, more than 100,000 spectators. The noise, the colour. Thirty three gladiators taking to the track when the sport was as dangerous as any.
‘Clark had been there two years earlier when he finished second to Parnelli Jones of the USA.’ There had been flags when Jones had suffered oil leaks and many wondered if the same dispensation would have been granted to Clark if the circumstances had been reversed.
Clark though was invincible in 1965. ABC Sports, who broadcast extended coverage of the 500 for the first time, named the Scot as sportsman of the year. McFarlane believes that Indianapolis showed Clark at his peerless best.
‘He was a clean driver,’ he says. Clark never made aggressive demands of the car, preferring to guide it around the track with an unnatural ease.
Clark won two F1 world championships before his life was tragically cut short at the age of 32
‘There were two sides to him. He was a farmer, happy to be back home, quiet and unassuming. But on the track he was fully focused. He was able to make decisions quickly and to execute them flawlessly.
‘Jackie Stewart always says that it took Jim hours to decide what film to go to see. By the time he had plumped for one, the film was over. He was entirely different in a car.’
The great Scot sits at the top table of sporting greatness. The world will descend on Duns to pay tribute. As his cousin, Doug Niven, says: ‘It may be one of the last chances of some of his contemporaries to see the cars and hear and tell the stories. We are all getting on,’ he says.
But the legend attracts new adherents down the years. They will be present at the event that has been sponsored by Lotus and the Colin Chapman Foundation.
One man, of course, will be missing. But his presence will be felt. Jim Clark would have been 89. He endures in memory and in black and white footage.
Clark died during a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim in 1968 but his legend endures
It is appropriate to give him the last word. One day after that famous victory, he told an interviewer that the Indy 500 triumph had given him substantial satisfaction because it had been ‘a greater challenge’ than Formula 1.
‘I think that’s because I am the outsider breaking in, I feel the underdog,’ he says with the gentlest of smiles.
The farmer from Chirnside had conquered the New World. It is a story for the ages.
For further information, go to www.jimclarktrust.com
