Graham Gauld Remembers Jim Clark

I first met Jim in 1955 just three or four months after I had completed two years compulsory service in the Royal Air Force. In January that year, I had been appointed sports editor of Motor World magazine, as you may have read in Pete Vack’s interview a while ago.

On this March weekend it had snowed, but the Edinburgh University Motor Club decided to continue with their spring meeting on the old wartime relief airfield of Drem. Because of the snow the course had been shortened a bit to allow for hooligans to overshoot the finish line and slide into infinity without hitting anything.

The only person to do this was a man later to drive for Aston Martin and Ferrari, Michael Salmon. Michael was to be involved in the accident at Le Mans in 1963 when Ninian Sanderson’s AC Cobra and Michael’s Ferrari 330LMB hit oil deposited by Bruce McLaren’s Aston Martin DP 214 Berlinetta which had blown up

Jim Clark, right, with his cousin Billy Potts on the 1955 International Scottish Rally with the Austin Healey 100.

However back in March of 1955 Michael was driving a fawn-colored Jaguar XK120 he had been given by his parents as a 21st birthday present. In the paddock he was parked next to Jim Clark with his Sunbeam Talbot sedan and his friend Ian Scott Watson. As I already knew Scott Watson, I quickly got to know Clark and in the next two years I navigated for him in a couple of small local rallies.

In June 1955 Jim took part in his first international motor sport event, the International Scottish Rally, along with his cousin Billy Potts in Potts’ Austin Healey 100. Jim was thrilled and on the long and fast Glencoe road in Scotland, he hit 100 mph in the Healey for the first time in his life and enjoyed it. His father would not allow Jim—still only nineteen—to have a sports car and wanted him to drive a typical farmer’s car, a cumbersome Rover. Jim persuaded him to let him buy the Sunbeam Talbot which was quite sporty at the time.

In his first race at Crimond in the North of Scotland, he felt that his parents would not find out that he had raced Scott Watson’s DKW Sonderklasse in the sports car race. But some farming relatives from the area were at the meeting and by the time Jim got home his parents knew about it and they were not happy.

Time passed, and the small racing team of Border Reivers that had been set up about five miles from Jim’s farm in Chirnside, bought a D-type Jaguar for their regular driver Jimmy Somervail. Jim Clark and Scott Watson were asked to test the car at Chaterhall, the local circuit. Scott Watson was ruled out as a driver because he had glasses and at high speed had difficulty seeing. Clark proved to be quick and it was agreed that Clark and Somervail would share the car during the 1958 racing season.

The first race in the D-type was at a new airfield circuit in the north of England called Ouston, The D-type was loaded on to Jim’s farm lorry the night before. As a precaution, since it was March and very cold, Jim opened the taps on the truck radiator just in case the water froze during the night. However, his farm manager had the same idea, and he too turned the tap but of course now the tap was closed. Next morning Clark turned the tap, thinking he was closing off the radiator but was in fact opening it so when he poured water in it ran out the bottom silently on to some straw. He then drove off and after about four miles had to stop as the truck engine was red hot. There was nothing more to do but to unload the D-type and with a heavy coat and a scarf, Clark set off on the main A1 road to the circuit. Luckily the police did not notice.

At that race Clark created something of a stir for not only did he win his first races in the car, he also set a lap record of over 100 mph which was the first circuit in the UK to be lapped at over 100mph in a sports car!

Clark turns into his farmhouse driving Colin Chapman’s Ford Galaxie with his fields in the background.

However, Jim now had to get the D-type back to the farm in Scotland without the police seeing him. He left Ouston very early on Sunday morning. At about 7:30 he was on a stretch of dual carriageway near Scotch Corner when he couldn’t believe his eyes. Coming down the other lane was another D-type Jaguar. Both of them stopped, and it turned out the other D-type was being driven by Sir Robert Ropner, owner of one of the local shipyards who happened to be a Jaguar fan. He was a friend of Bill Lyons of Jaguar who had sold him a D-type for his own use on the road! Ponder the probability of the two D-types meeting on a deserted road in the North of England…

Jim Clark was always modest but at the same time could get annoyed if he thought anyone was taking advantage of him. For example, some years later when I was helping him write his autobiography after winning the 1963 World Championship, we were in a restaurant in Edinburgh taking notes. By now, the waiter was a bit full of himself and had realized who was at the table. Clark was getting a bit edgy about it. When it came to coffee, the waiter asked if we wanted liqueurs and Jim said he would like a Tia Maria and cream as someone had introduced him to it. The waiter produced it with a flourish and Jim picked it up and sniffed it. Turning to the waiter he said ”That’s cherry brandy!” to which the waiter smiled and said no, it was Tia Maria. At this Jim handed him the glass and said, “Taste it!” He did and had to admit that in fact he had served cherry brandy. Clark was not amused: no tip!

Paddy Hopkirk reading Playboy at Jim Clark’s farm.

If you wanted to see Jim Clark at his best, it was with a bunch of friends. A few weeks after the restaurant incident, Jim telephoned to say that he would be free the following weekend and suggested I come down and stay at the farm so we could get on with the book. At this time, Jackie Stewart had been racing for a year with a Marcos and was now with Ecurie Ecosse driving the Cooper Monaco and a Tojeiro-Ford coupe. Jackie had asked me if he could come along the next time I was going to see Jim as Clark was already a tremendous hero to Stewart. I mentioned this to Jim and he said to bring him along. I picked up Jackie in my Mini and we drove down to the farm.

At home giving Jackie Stewart advice on braking!

When we arrived, who should be there but rally driver Paddy Hopkirk. He had just won the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally in his factory Mini. He didn’t know Jackie and so introductions were made, followed by dinner that had been prepared by Jim’s housekeeper. After dinner we retired to the lounge where Jim slumped down in an armchair. Paddy sat in another clutching the latest copy of Playboy whilst Jackie and I sat on the couch. Clark started to chew his finger nails, which was almost a compulsion, and Jackie suddenly said “Jimmy, a funny thing happened at Snetterton last week when I was testing the Cooper Monaco and the Tojeiro. I jumped from one car to the other and when I got to the Esses, I forgot which car I was in and hit the accelerator instead of the brake.”

“You went off the road?” asked Clark.

“No, I took opposite lock one way and then the other and caught the car,” said Jackie.

Without even looking up from his finger nails Clark asked, “What were you braking for?!”

Jackie asked him what he meant and at this Clark lifted his head, looked straight at Stewart and said “If you had been going at proper racing speeds and made a mistake like that you had to go off the road! So what were you braking for?”

There was silence for a moment and then Jackie said “Christ, you’re right, what was I braking for?!”

British Grand Prix support race 1964. Jackie Stewart at the wheel of the Ecurie Ecosse Tojeiro-Ford gets some last minute advice from Jim Clark with eventual race winner Hugh Dibley (Brabham) left.

To me it summed up the professor and tutor relationship Jim Clark had with Jackie Stewart. But Clark was also concerned about Stewart. A year later when Jackie was having his first season with BRM, he arrived at Spa in Belgium which Clark hated as a circuit. What is more it was pouring with rain. During the race Clark sped away into the distance and built up a 45 second lead and began to lap the tail-enders. “The visibility was so bad I was picking and choosing where I would overtake the back markers and so my lead dropped back to about 24 seconds. Then at the end of the long straight I saw away in the distance Jackie in his BRM who was in second place. I thought that Jackie would now see me and think he was catching up with me and I did not want him to take any dangerous risks, so I put in two or three quick laps and got back up to 45 seconds again.”

Now I am sure the cynics will say that Clark had a high opinion of himself but nothing was further from the truth: he knew what he could do in those conditions and was concerned that Jackie might have an accident on a circuit where Clark had already seen two friends killed (Archie Scott-Brown in a Lister-Jaguar the first time Clark raced there, and Alan Stacey, his Lotus team mate in 1960).

It is ironic to think that Stewart was at the forefront of the drive to make circuits safer when Jim Clark was killed at Hockenheim in 1968. On that very day Stewart was at Jarama circuit in Spain inspecting the safety improvements. Had there been an Armco barrier at Hockenheim, there is absolutely no doubt Jim Clark would not have been killed. And had that been so, we probably would have got a gang together to celebrate his birthday this month.