In Search of a Champion

         

       I drove fifty miles to this churchyard in a damp corner of the Scottish Borders, a region of gently undulating hills, sheep and lush fenced-off fields, to see a tombstone commemorating a farmer. A bunch of bright flowers adorns the grave, anticipating the anniversary of his tragic death forty six years ago in a forest in Germany. I read the inscription as the rain pitter-patters against my umbrella, and my sense of surprise heightens. 

         The farmer in question was also a double world motor racing champion. Not only that, he won the biggest race in the U.S.A. This is not news to me. What’s remarkable is that these tremendous accomplishments are listed below his original occupation. In the era of Twitter and Facebook such modesty is almost unimaginable.  

         Jim Clark’s grave is found at the foot of a hill in Chirnside, a nondescript village that could pass for a hundred others in Scotland. In nearby Duns he is remembered in a museum situated in a fine early Edwardian house that once served as a doctor’s surgery. Innumerable trophies serve as proof of his brilliance as a racing driver. 

         Among the most notable are the two diminutive silver cups Clark received for winning the Formula One world title in 1963 and 1965. There are also prizes from the U.S.A.: a brick from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway dated 1909, and a fantastically elaborate clock surmounted by a checkered flag and a racing car, Clark’s reward for triumphing in the iconic Indianapolis 500 race in 1965. 

         But it is the pictures of Jim Clark that are especially interesting. They show a humble man who had an easy way with people: one shot has him blending in with a small group of men outside a local garage in 1966, his trousers clearly too short for him. In others he’s laughing on the track with his Lotus teammate, the aristocratic-looking Graham Hill. 

         You cannot fail to see the determination in his brown eyes, the resolve and ambition that took this farmer from the Borders to great heights. In later photos, his lined forehead and the crow’s-feet by his eyes hint at the extreme pressure he must have experienced in the face of fearful risks. These dangers are evident from a thrilling on board video of Clark speeding around the tree-lined circuit at Oulton Park in England.

         Something is missing, though. The museum provides little information about the man himself and his personal life. We learn that he became a racing driver in the face of strong opposition from his parents and that he hated the fast and dangerous circuit at Spa, but these are just scratches on the surface. We are left to make our own inferences. 

         The man overseeing the museum tells me that Clark continues to exercise a fascination, even among younger generations, and that thirty to forty people visit a day. I think I understand the attraction, for as is the case with Ayrton Senna, there’s a mystique about Jim Clark. He has the magnetism of those who died young. Senna himself must have felt it, for there’s a small picture of the legendary Brazilian driver hunched over a table in the museum in 1991, signing his name in the visitors’ book.