Jim Clark deep in thought: Note the chewed finger nails.
By Graham Gauld
Had he lived, Jim Clark would have been 76 years of age on March 4th. This thought came into my head because someone sent me an email about Jim and the early days, before he came into Formula 1. Suddenly I realized that I had never written an article about Jim Clark in the past twenty years – partly because I had said it all in the three different editions of my biography of him and felt there was nothing more to say. Then I thought again. In twenty years a new generation has sprung up and at the same time my Clark books are now nearly 20 years out of print – so you can only find one on EBay or the like.
Jim Clark had great skill even in his earliest events like here at Leith Fort in Edinburgh with his Sunbeam Talbot sedan.
I thought a few notes and stories about his early days may not go amiss, if only to give a new generation an idea of what motivates and makes a racing driver.