The 1964 Daily Express International Trophy meeting at Silverstone for Jim Clark brought all four seasons in a day: on one brilliant uSaturday, in front of a packed crowd, Jim raced the F1 Lotus 25-Coventry-Climax, the Ian Walker Lotus-30-Ford, the Ford Lotus Cortina and the Ian Walker Lotus Elan-Ford 26R. And then he rushed away for two days of testing at Indianapolis.
Images: LAT Photographic, The Henry Ford
Identical attitudes from Mr Clark as he balances the Ian Walker Elan (left) and Lotus 30 (below) through Becketts. Both cars shared the same backbone-chassis principle. The IWR Elan always handled well (despite Jackie Stewart finding his Chequered Flag car very knife-edgy) and the 30, which flexed, was driveable in the wet and semi-wet (whenever its irascible mechanical components allowed). Jim adopts a similar pose with the Lotus 25 in the header: note that the left front Dunlop, mid-corner, is pointing in exactly the same direction as those of the Elan and the 30 – dead straight, in other words (and therefore textbook-perfect). In the Cortina (below) Jim was by contrast always playing with understeer
Race 14 of Jim Clark’s 1964 racing season – 50 years ago – was staged on the south circuit of the Nurburgring. The Eifelrennen – “the Eifel races” – were already forged in history. And now, as the second round of the new F2 championship, the tradition would continue. Jim’s opposition was still not at full strength, although a certain Jochen Rindt was on the starting grid and was beginning to make an impression. In the videos below we look at Jim’s race weekend with the Ron Harris Team Lotus 32 – and then talk to Jonathan Williams, the Englishman who finished third in the F3 support race at the 1964 Eifelrennen Images: LAT Photographic
Milliseconds after being forced off-line, Jim spins to avoid Andre Pilette’s Scirocco-Climax at Melling Crossing
The Aintree 200 meeting 50 years ago was significant not only because it was the last major motor racing international staged at the racecourse owned by Mrs Mirabel Topham; it was also the scene of one of Jim Clark’s rare F1 accidents. Racing Jack Brabham hard for the lead, Jim was forced off-line by a back marker and spun heavily into the straw bails at Melling Crossing. His new Lotus 33 was destroyed, obliging Team Lotus to revert to the 25B for the opening rounds of the 1964 Championship. Earlier in the day, as we recount below, Jim finished second in the new Ian Walker-run Lotus 30 and won his class with the Ford Lotus Cortina.
The brand new Lotus 33, featuring larger driveshafts and new ZF gearbox, was badly damaged
“I was lucky to walk away from the wreck,” said Jim later. “The accident highlighted the dangers when lapping slower cars.”
Jim debuted the new Lotus 30 at Aintree and finished second after starting from the back of the grid, setting fastest lap on the way. In terms of handling, though, the 30 was a long way from Bruce McLaren’s winning Zerex (now re-named “Cooper-Climax”)
Jim won his class in the Aintree round of the British Touring Car Championship with the Ford Lotus Cortina. He pushed Sir Gawaine Baillie’s Galaxy hard but the big car always had the legs. Jim headed the other Cortinas driven by Peter Arundell, Frank Gardner and Jackie Stewart
It wasn’t always going to be a free weekend: when Jim Clark opened his red leather agenda over the winter in Edington Mains the Syracuse F1 weekend would definitely have been listed – a race full-square against the new Ferraris. The Italian police decreed otherwise, however. Still the questions were being asked about the Monza accident in 1961. Jim addressed them; he even held a press conference in late 1963 so that the British press would know exactly what was being said. By March, 1964, however, there was still no clarity. Colin Chapman and Jim thus took the decision to avoid Italy for a while; Syracuse was off the schedule. Instead, Jim would race in the British Automobile Racing Club’s traditional spring meeting at Oulton Park. It wasn’t a big international; on the contrary, it was by any standards a “national” meeting. Nonetheless it featured the reigning World Champion in three different cars in three different events; Bruce McLaren in his new Zerex sports car (just purchased from Roger Penske and hastily fitted not only with a 2.7 litre Climax engine but also the lighting, windscreen wiper and luggage space required by the RAC regulations!); Jackie Stewart (Tyrrell F3 Cooper-BMW and Cooper Monaco, which he shunted heavily in practice; Jackie didn’t race the Chequered Flag Elan as I imply below. He would have his first race with it at Silverstone in three weeks’ time and at Oulton it was driven into a good second place by Mr Chequered Flag himself – Graham Warner); Sir John Whitmore (Lotus Elan and Cortina); and Jack Sears (Ford Galaxy and Cobra). I should also add that Phil Middlehurst, father of the Lotus 25/43-driving Andy, was also very quick at Oulton this spring weekend, winning the Mini class with his very rapid Cooper S.
Why did Jim Clark make the effort to race in such relatively unimportant events? “I really enjoyed myself racing in 1964,” he would say later.”I managed to relax a bit more than usual; somehow the strain was not so great. I had, after all, achieved my ambition of becoming World Champion, so maybe my mind made me relax a little. I certainly felt freer of the cares that had almost obsessed me at times in 1963 and I consciously went out to enjoy myself. I don’t think this was shown in my driving, for though my attitude might have changed a little, the results will show I was trying even harder in 1964 than I had the previous year.”
Image below: LAT Photographic
Jim takes time for a spot of polishing at Edington Mains in early 1964
Jim Clark’s 1964 season engendered a wide variety of nice – and sometimes not-so-nice – racing cars. The F2 Lotus 32 fell firmly in the former category. Jim’s first race with it was in the opening round of the French F2 series – itself the first race for the new F2 – around the familiar streets of Pau. Enter Ron Harris Team Lotus: in this video we’ve tried to uncover a little more about the former motor-cyclist-cum-film distributor-cum Team Lotus entrant. We also chat with with the very rapid John Fenning, himself a Ron Harris Team Lotus driver, and for the bulk of 1964 a front-running F3 star.
Jim and the Ron Harris Lotus 32-Cosworth were the class of the Pau, 1964, weekend
From Sebring back to the UK via a quick test day at Indianapolis: for Jim Clark, the 1964 season was now gathering pace. Next on the agenda was the March 30 non-championship F1 race at Goodwood, that gorgeous circuit on the Sussex downs on which he first tested the Aston Martin F1 car late in 1959. Jim had subsequently won prodigiously there in Formula Junior, and had had a lot of fun too with John Ogier’s Aston Martin Zagato – not to mention the Ecurie Ecosse Tojeiro (crashed heavily by his team-mate, Maston Gregory in 1959) and the Border Reivers Lister and Aston DBR1 – but this was his first chance to race an F1 car at Goodwood. It was also his first race at Goodwood since 1962, although he had tested there in 1963. As at Snetterton, he would drive the modified Lotus 25 on 13in wheels and “donut” Dunlops. Also on Jim’s race card on that Easter Monday: his third British race with the Ford Lotus Cortina.
Images: LAT Photographic and Peter Windsor Collection
In front of a packed 1964 Easter Monday crowd Jim Clark drifts to victory in the 42-lap “News of the World” Trophy race for F1 cars at the wheel of Lotus 25B/R6. Note the wider Dunlops now mounted on 13in wheels (relative to the 15in wheels and narrower tyres used in 1963). Jim inherited his win from Graham Hill, who retired his new BRM with two laps to run, but even so was obliged to race for half the distance without a clutch
In the early stages of the 10-lap St Mary’s Trophy race Jim chases Jack Sears’ Willment Galaxy and leads team-mate Peter Arundell plus the two Willment Lotus Cortina drivers (Bob Olthoff and Frank Gardner)
Sally Stokes (Swart) in the Goodwood pits with that Heuer stopwatch Jim gave her after the Geneva Show. It was cold on Easter Monday, 1964
The 1964 Daily Express International Trophy meeting at Silverstone for Jim Clark brought all four seasons in a day: on one brilliant uSaturday, in front of a packed crowd, Jim raced the F1 Lotus 25-Coventry-Climax, the Ian Walker Lotus-30-Ford, the Ford Lotus Cortina and the Ian Walker Lotus Elan-Ford 26R. And then he rushed away for two days of testing at Indianapolis.
peterwindsor.com 
