It is difficult to believe that fifty years have passed since Jim Clark died. It was April 7th, 1968. He was racing a Lotus 48 for Team Lotus in a Formula 2 event at Hockenheim, Germany. The race was held in two heats, and it was on the fifth lap of the first heat that Clark’s Lotus left the course, somersaulted and went broadside into the trees. He died instantly.
Clark’s motorsports career began by running local road rallies and hill climbs in his Sunbeam-Talbot. In 1956, he competed in his first road race behind the wheel of a DKW Sonderklasse at Crimond, Scotland. By 1958, Clark was driving for the local Border Reivers team, racing Jaguar D-types and Porsches in national events, winning 18 races.
Jim Clark came to the attention of none other than Colin Chap-man by finishing a close second to him in a GT race at Brands Hatch, driving a Lotus Elite. Chapman was sufficiently impressed to give Clark a ride in one of his Formula Junior cars.
Jim's first win for Team Lotus was the first race for the newly introduced Formula Junior class at Goodwood in March 1960. He made his F1 debut at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort later that June.
Ferrari dominated the 1961 season which introduced the new 1.5 liter engine formula. Yet Clark won the non-championship race at Pau, and finished third in both Holland and France. Team-mate Innes Ireland won the final race of the year, the US Grand Prix, giving Team Lotus their first Grand Prix Championship win. But he was released afterwards as team owner Colin Chapman decided to hitch Lotus’ fortunes to Jim Clark’s star.
Now Lotus team leader and driving the new Lotus 25 with the revolutionary monocoque chassis, Clark won the Belgian, British
and United States GPs, as he challenged Graham Hill for the 1962 World Championship. The title decider was the South African GP where the rivals qualified on the front row of the grid. Clark steadily pulled away at the front of the field and was set to clinch a first world title before suffering an oil leak with 20 laps to go.
His first Drivers' World Championship came driving the Lotus 25 in 1963, winning seven out of the ten races, and giving Lotus its first Constructors' World Championship. Clark's record of seven wins in a season would not be equaled until 1984 by Alain Prost. He also ran his first Indianapolis 500 that year, finishing second behind Parnelli Jones, and winning Rookie of the Year honors.
In 1964 Clark came within just a few laps of retaining his World Championship crown, but just as in 1962, an oil leak from the engine robbed him of the title. Despite qualifying fastest for the Indianapolis 500, tire failure damaged the Lotus's suspension and ruined his chance for a win.
Jim Clark won the World Driving Championship for the second time in 1965 with the Lotus 33. And he finally won a convincing victory at the Indianapolis 500 in the Lotus 38, becoming the only driver to date to win both the Indy 500 and the F1 title in the same year.
Once again, a new F1 engine formula to 3 liters caught Team Lotus unprepared in 1966. They campaigned with the 1.5 liter Climax engine in the Type 33, until the BRM H16 became avail-able for the Lotus 43. The complex engine was very unreliable, But Jim nursed it to win the U.S. Grand Prix. He also finished second at Indianapolis in the STP Lotus 38 behind Graham Hill.
For 1967, Lotus and Cosworth (with Ford’s help) collaborated to produce the Ford-Cosworth DFV engine, and mated it with the Lotus’ new 49 chassis. In it’s first race at Zandvoort, new team-mate Graham Hill put it on the pole, but Jim Clark drove it to victory. He then won with it again at the British, United States and Mexican Grands Prix. And, in January 1968, he won the South African Grand Prix, with the car now sporting the new red, white and gold color scheme of the Gold Leaf tobacco company. It was to be Clark’s last Grand Prix win.
The cause of Jim Clark’s fatal crash was never conclusively identified. In Graham Gauld’s book “Jim Clark, The Legend Lives On”, all of the pieces of his car were collected and thoroughly examined by representatives from Lotus, Cosworth, and Fire-stone. This investigation team was headed up by P.F. Jowitt, an RAC scrutineer whose profession was aircraft accident investigation at Farnborough. Both the engine and gearbox were found in good working order, and there was no evidence of any pre-impact structural failure on the suspension parts or fixing bolts. However, the right rear tire was found to have a small cut which prevented the tire from holding air. Colin Chapman felt that this cut tire possibly caused by a fragment of another competitor’s broken crank-shaft from the day before, was the cause of the crash. High speed centrifugal force could have masked the symptoms of the deflating tire until the sidewalls finally lost contact with the rim, suddenly deflating the tire completely. But there was no conclusive proof.
Today, there is a memorial to Jim Clark at Hockenheim. A stone cross, engraved with his name and the date of his passing, was originally located where his car came to rest. But the track has been reconfigured and reduced in length according to FIA wishes, so the memorial has been relocated to the heavily wooded mid-section of what used to be the original course, and enhanced with granite plaques denoting his 25 Grand Pix wins, his two World Driving Championships, and his Indianapolis victory.
Fifty years have passed since that tragic day, and we will probably never know for sure what caused Jim Clark’s car to go off into the trees and end his life. We do however, have the legacy of a quiet and humble man, who loved going fast in fast cars, and rose as a champion of champions. Jim Clark and his memory will always live within Team Lotus, and his many fans and admirers.
