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JIM CLARK REMEMBERED

By Auto Action

Date posted: April 7, 2024

Yesterday, April 7, was the anniversary of one of motorsport’s dark days. The news reached Australia early the following morning, Monday, April 8, 1968, that double world F1 champion, Scotsman Jim Clark, had died after his car had apparently suffered a failure in a wet, miserable Formula 2 race, at Hockenheim, and plunged off into trackside trees (not a lot of Armco in those days) at high speed …

The car was destroyed and Clark was killed instantly.

Just a couple of months earlier, Clark had dominated the NZ/Australian Tasman Series in a 2.5 litre version of the then-radical 3-litre F1 Lotus 49, winning three of the four Australian rounds, and the series. They were to be his last race wins.

He wasn’t originally scheduled to contest the Hockenheim race, but sponsor pressures saw the F2 Lotus – also in the newly-launched Gold Leaf Team Lotus colours – line up.

In an era when a number of F1 drivers died in race crashes, Clark’s death started many to question the sport and its price – after all, if the greatest of them all, Clark, could die at the wheel, anyone could …

As an aside, NZ star, Graeme Lawrence, honoured via a Legends of Speed event at Hampton Downs in NZ just two weeks ago, was making a one-off European F2 race appearance at the event, driving a McLaren, and got a lift to the track from the Scotsman, who’d become a good friend during the Tasman Series.

By Chris Lambden

Photo by Rainer Schlegelmilch

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