THE LOYALTY OF A CHAMPION
Jim Clark and His Time
>We all consist of emotions< Ayrton Senna
The little path
throughout the forest is long and arduous. In spite of the fact
that it is midsummer, it is severely cool, but it is still eight
o`clock in the morning. Fixed on a tree, an old wooden panel
warns the wayfarer not to smoke because of the danger of
("Strictly forbidden by the police!") and your memories
are walking somewhere through the history of modern Formula One.
In this lonely silence you suddenly feel a colossal breath of
wind, the floor starts vibrating and the trees move like being
driven by a beginning thunderstorm, before the following rumbling
of guns seems to take your feet away from the ground. Blue and
white flashes of colour are gleaming through the swinging armco
barriers within a fraction of a second before the whole scene
disappears a few moments later because of the noise of the engine
dies successively in the distance of the woods. Now you are
tuning up your walkman a little louder and you can listen from
the circuit radio: The spots of colour were a Brabham Yamaha and
it was driven by Martin Brundle. At this straight modern Grand
Prix cars reach top speeds of over 350 kilometres per hour,
before the drivers jump so hard into their brakes for the
following chicane, that g-forces come up to a level of more than
five times of the basic gravitational pull of the earth.
Astronauts in their spaceships do not suffer under more. It is
the place, where Jim Clark had lost his life on the seventh of
April in the year 1968.
The new view of the earth, being available for the first time by the Apollo 8 mission during the christmas holidays the same year he not been able to make notice of at least. I am sure he had his pleasure by that event. But the time, when a whole generation absolutely senseless made war against traditional values, he had become aware of, before he had gone. Johannes Gross, this great German journalist, some years ago called the eighty-six-movement "the most silly revolution of all times, because no charismatic personality had its origin in it." - in the magazine edition of the famous Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung (>Frankfurt General Newspaper<) . Jim Clark, the farmer from Edington Mains, was a model for all those not wanting to take part in the collective destruction of society`s moral against all temporary tendencies: The man in his time.
He was shy, he was sensitive, deeply non-confident in dealing with other people. Decisions of private nature he nearly was unable to make. His self-confidence was made out of his excellent competence and by his deep belief in his ability to act in the right way when sitting in his cockpit. Absolutely. Otherwise there had been no chance of continuing after the tragic collision during the Italian Grand Prix killing Wolfgang von Trips and a dozen of spectators. His loyalty was unquestioning, but it became a one way road, a taking without giving in the partnership with Cloin Chapman , who made a doctrine or better an ideology out of light-weight-constructing. Chapman, I am respecting both as an engineer and as a human being on a very high grade of level until now, never became aware of Clarks extraordinary type of loyalty, in spite of being a genius. Revolutionary mission spirit very often transfigures the right view onto reality; especially if there is a public full of scepticism including a huge portion of polemics. Lightweight construction has got its basis in the laws of nature and we do not need to discuss the complex relationships of theoretical physics - a look out of the window onto a flying bird is an example of its own value. However the balancing of the limits is a very difficult task as well it is dangerous; and there is no success guaranteed in every case. The possibility of tragedy is always there, no doubt. Everybody knows the fact. But everybody denies it. You can not act in this sport, that is also an industry as it was described by Graham Hill, without illusions about your own behaviour. People from outside may consider that self-deception, for the participants in this type of business it is simply self-protection. 350 kilometres per hour mean the same abstract danger for the driver of a formula racing car as the critical space does for the astronaut in his little capsule. Jim Clark had known these facts very well in spite of not discussing this problematicism publicly worth to be mentioned. The circle of dangers surrounding him he wanted to break through by a retirement from active competition in the right time, because in those days the simple but true rule had found its reality : The more races you take part in, the higher are the risks of being hurt or killed. For this reason Clarks start at the Hockenheim Formula 2 round seemed to be without any sense, but there were his deep moral relationship to Team Lotus and his personal ties to Colin Chapman. At the beginning of the year Chapman had been able to sign up with Gold Leaf as the first commercial sponsor in European motor racing and therefore Clarks Lotus 48 of Hockenheim was already coloured red and white and gold. The epoque of commercial sponsoring had just begun and also in these economic affairs Chapman became a pioneer in.
Surely, the same day Clark had scheduled a start for Ford at the sportscar race in Kentish Brands Hatch, not realizing the date`s collision with the Hockenheim Formula 2 event. When he had noticed that fact, the Lotus relation had got its preference.
Below: A bed on wheels. Clarks Lotus Climax was small, light and flat. The backrest was leant 45° backwards; Clark drove nearly lying with his arms spread widely. The well-kept car we found during an exhibition in Silverstone at the British Grand Prix 1991.
The shower over my over my back was as cold as ice and my heart was beating faster than at my first Grand Prix visit over three decades ago, because this time I had not been informed before: The Ford Cosworth Grand Prix car I suddenly in front of without any pre-knowledge, of course in Tom Wheatcrofts famous museum, the Donington Collection in Englands Midlands, appeared to me like a vehicle from another star. The four wheels of their identical size and the wide side-pots, partly raw but polished aluminum, above all the nose section are giving a hint to the technical handwriting of Robin Herd. In Oxford he once had got a degree of honour, then he became a well-known member of the technical staff constructing the supersonic Concorde, before he was ordered to design that car by Ford at the Cosworth facilities in Northampton. The Detroit car manufacturer tried to pull Jim Clark on that secure side never to be recognized at Team Lotus, nevertheless respecting their technological power in creating innovations very well. For Walter Hayes of Ford, being as nervous as well as a liberal character, the drivers were more than partners sharing a common business. They were friends. By the Herd designed car, without wings but four-wheel-drive for better grip, Hayes wanted to give Clark that extra protection he needed so seriously in the autumn of his career. People, who work in a dangerous circle of extraordinary risks, need a maximum capacity of responsibility on the side of their superiors; Clark was outstanding but not invulnarable. The Ford project, hidden and protected like a military secret, he must have known and agreed to; he was deeper involved in the plan, than ever can be proved. Otherwise no explantion can be found for the fact the project had been started to bring it to its final result in form of a running car. That Walter Hayes and Ford had come too late, was not the fault of their own. History sometimes gets a dynamic development of its own taking away any control.
Formula One always needs the technological innovation, not only for legitimation reasons, but as a basic element. Without that it depilates to simple Driving round in circles, to a complete show and turns into an egoistic business the only reason is making lots of money. In reality Formula One is space-travel on earth with all its changing perspectives, new dimensions and also utopias. But it is not the centre of the universe as many people try to make us believe. The Grand Prix family, in the early days consisting of a few people travelling from race to race, is now a global village driven by modern transport- and communication technology, and everybody, who wants to do so, is welcomed as its inhabitant.
Below: A Concorde for road use. The Ford Cosworth Grand Prix car possibly had rescued Clark from his tragic end. The car never to be raced later was on exhibition at Donington. Except the vehicle shown here only one further monocoque had been built.
For five years, from 1968 to 1973, Jim Clark was on top of the list of Grand Prix winners, he won 25 Grand eprčuves; twotimes, in 1963 and 1965, he became world champion and additionally, also in 1965, he triumphed in the 500 Miles of Indianapolis as the first ever European. All over the world millions of people had followed him this way, but they also had a deep feeling of mourning and bitter pain in their hearts, when suddenly everythings came to an end at this terrible tree in Hockenheim. Is he, three decades later, an idealized, romantic model of the past, in a world out of values, where burgeois society had declared its bankruptcy to make ideologists and demagogues, from which direction they may come from, fill this vacuum? Never! Jim Clark is a model for the future, because real glory finds its basis in personal integrity, not in simple successes. By that it is less transitory than wilting laurel. We should not forget that now entering a new millennium.
Klaus Ewald
Photos: Klaus Ewald/researchracing, Graphics: project * 2000
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