pistonbroke Posted June 21, 2022 Share Posted June 21, 2022 When you could see the man & machine working together 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted June 21, 2022 Share Posted June 21, 2022 Beautiful! Designed by the makers with little interference from the 'authorities'. He was driving in a Formula 2 race when I saw him at Crystal Palace on May 18th 1964 along with Mike Spence and several other famous names. Report here from Motorsport magazine. The following year Clark was at Brands in March for the Daily Mail Race of the Champions read the list of names competing for nostalgia's sake and he also (as was the practice in that time, drove his Lotus Cortina in a saloon car race. He literally drove the wheels of it - well one wheel anyway - as he passed us as we stood right by the track in the GP part out in the woods. Can't name the part now as the names have changed a bit, and it was quite a few years ago. When I say he passed us, he was on foot as his poor car was on one knee on the grass back up the road. Those were the great days when you could see your idol pretty well anywhere, driving more or less anything. Then came April 1968 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted June 21, 2022 Author Share Posted June 21, 2022 [quote] Can't name the part now as the names have changed a bit, [\quote] Dingle Dell ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted June 21, 2022 Share Posted June 21, 2022 Not sure Bernie. It was not far from the pedestrian bridge over the circuit because we had carried on walking along the trackside and when the saloon car race started we stood there watching. Britain's tallest man of the time, Chris Greener at 7'6 1/4", who was a young lad living somewhere in Kent, walked over the bridge and his head was well clear of the sides put there to stop people gathering on the bridge to watch. We were there too, when Swiss motorcycle racer Florian Camathias had his fatal crash in a sidecar race later in 1965. His forks broke through hydrogen embrittlement failure according to one metallurgist's report, or a faulty DiY weld on the forks from another account. At the same meeting Bill Ivy drove a 1000cc Kirby Matchless in Race of the South in which he had to carry ballast in his race suit as he weighed too little to qualify! Great racing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corsechris Posted June 21, 2022 Share Posted June 21, 2022 Back when it was a sport, not a business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted June 21, 2022 Share Posted June 21, 2022 Precisely! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonk179 Posted June 21, 2022 Share Posted June 21, 2022 Where you finished the race and your debrief was a fag and a beer👍👍👍👍👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Hunter - Club Secretary Posted June 22, 2022 Share Posted June 22, 2022 I'm not old enough to have seen Jim Clark drive, but as a child my father would always wax lyrical about his ability to drive the wheels off anything! He would also talk about the genius of Chapman and that's what sparked off my love of the "seven". Amazing times, sometimes I wish I'd been about to see it. If you've never seen it, I'd recommend watching "Grand Prix: The Killer Years".... an amazing bit of TV and in lots ways a great tribute to the far too many drivers (like Clark) who lost their lives in the 60's and 70's for the sport they loved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted June 22, 2022 Share Posted June 22, 2022 That programme illustrates a national scarring from all the lives lost in two world wars. Life is now valued, sometimes I think rather over sentimentally, to a degree far beyond how is was then. No bouquets by the roadside, no piles of teddy bears outside murder victims' homes, simply a shrug and getting on with life. It is a world away from the incessant safety cars and red flags of modern racing. Cars blazing by the trackside as another driver struggles in vain to extricate the driver of the crashed car, and all the while the race continues. Imagine the furore if that attitude existed today! Racing drivers knew that their lives were likely to be cut short at any moment but still they drove. Not from fear of unemployment, but the sheer love of the sport. Don't think I don't value human life by my 'over sentimentally' comment, I do. It's the emotional incontinence which forces people to overtly mourn others whom they never knew nor met. The Princess Diana effect if you like. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted June 22, 2022 Share Posted June 22, 2022 49 minutes ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said: It's the emotional incontinence which forces people to overtly mourn others whom they never knew nor met. The Princess Diana effect if you like. Completely agree with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard (OldStager) Posted June 22, 2022 Share Posted June 22, 2022 11 hours ago, Blatman said: Completely agree with that. Agreed , never did get all that national mass emotion. Like Rob, I was too young to see Jim Clark drive, but thanks to YT I can at least watch him at work. I too also miss the days of seeing the driver, I haven't watch a F1 race for ... Can't recall, but it's many years. I think Hill won the championship that's the last full season I followed. This is why I now only watch mostly historic racing, with the exception of the V8 supercars in Aus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR.C Posted June 22, 2022 Share Posted June 22, 2022 Amateur's race for passion (Steve McQueen) , Professionals race for money (James Hunt). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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