Jim Clark and the Win That Changed Indy - Blog - The Henry Ford Jim Clark and the Win That Changed Indy Search our website to find what you’re looking for. Search Select Your Language You can select the language displayed on our website. Click the drop-down menu below and make your selection. Past Forward Jim Clark and the Win That Changed Indy September 9, 2013 The Indianapolis 500 is America’s premier motorsports event. Since its inaugural run in 1911, Indy has exemplified our country’s obsession with speed. It is ironic, then, that one of its most significant victories came from a Scottish driver in a British-built (though American-powered) car. In one fell swoop, Jim Clark’s 1965 win in the Lotus-Ford Type 38 marked the end of the four-cylinder Offenhauser engine’s dominance, the end of the front engine, and the incursion of European design into the most American of races. The Henry Ford holds many important objects, photographs and documents that tell this fascinating story. From left to right: Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman and Jim Clark in 1963 (THF110625).

By the early 1960s, four-cylinder roadsters were an ingrained tradition at the Indianapolis 500. Race teams were hesitant to experiment with anything else. American driver Dan Gurney, familiar with the advanced Formula One cars from the British firm Lotus, saw the potential in combining a lithe European chassis with a powerful American engine. He connected Lotus’s Colin Chapman with Ford Motor Company and the result was a lightweight monocoque chassis fitted with a specially designed Ford V-8 mounted behind the driver. Scotsman Jim Clark, Team Lotus’s top driver, took the new design to an impressive second place finish at Indy in 1963. While Clark started strong in the 1964 race, having earned pole position with a record-setting qualifying time, he lost the tread on his left rear tire, initiating a chain reaction that collapsed his rear suspension and ended his race early. The lightning-fast Wood Brothers crew refuels Jim Clark’s car at the 1965 Indianapolis 500. After a fiery crash the year before, Indy officials mandated smaller fuel tanks. Quick refueling stops became essential (THF110504).

Based on his past performances, Jim Clark entered the 1965 race as the odds-on favorite. Ford was especially eager for a win, though, and sought every advantage it could gain. The company brought in the Wood Brothers to serve as pit crew. The Woods were legendary in NASCAR for their precision refueling drills, and they were no less impressive at Indianapolis where they filled Clark’s car with 50 gallons in less than 20 seconds. This time, the race was hardly a contest at all. Clark led for 190 of the race’s 200 laps and took the checkered flag nearly two minutes ahead of his nearest rival. Jim Clark became the first driver to finish the Indianapolis 500 with an average speed above 150 mph (he averaged 150.686) and the first foreign driver to win since 1916. The race – and the cars in it – would never be the same. Many of The Henry Ford’s pieces from Clark’s remarkable victory are compiled in a special Expert Set on our Online Collections page . The most significant artifact from the 1965 race is, of course, car #82 itself.

Jim Clark’s 1965 Lotus-Ford Type 38 joined our collection in 1977 and has been a visitor favorite ever since. Dan Gurney, who brought Lotus and Ford together, shared his reminiscences with us in an interview on our OnInnovation site , shown below. The Henry Ford’s collection also includes a set of coveralls worn by Lotus mechanic Graham Clode at the 1965 race, and a program from the 1965 Victory Banquet signed by Clark himself. Photographs in our collection include everything from candid shots of Gurney, Chapman and Clark to posed portraits of Clark in #82 at the Brickyard. The Henry Ford’s extensive Dave Friedman Photo Collection includes more than 1,400 images of the 1965 Indianapolis 500 showing the countless cars, drivers, crew members and race fans that witnessed history being made. Finally, the Phil Harms Collection includes home movies of the 1965 race with scenes of Clark’s car rolling out of the pit lane, running practice and qualifying laps, and leading the pack in the actual race.

Jim Clark smiles after his 1965 win (THF 110641). Jim Clark died in a crash at the Hockenheim race circuit in Germany in 1968. It was a tragic and much-too-soon end for a man still considered to rank among the greatest race drivers of all time. The Henry Ford is proud to preserve so many pieces from his seminal Indianapolis 500 win. Matt Anderson is Curator of Transportation at The Henry Ford race car drivers , race cars , racing , Racing In America Sign Up For Our eNewsletters Get the latest news from The Henry Ford. From special offers to our series of popular Enthusiasts eNewsletters, you can tailor the information you’d like us to deliver directly to your inbox.

Indy 500 Memories - Jim Clark wins in 1965 - Formula 1, Indycar - The Checkered Flag Paul Hensby — May 21, 2015 Jim Clark was victorious in the 1965 Indy 500 (Credit: IMS Photo) It is fifty years since the legendary Jim Clark stole the show at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and took victory in the famous Indy 500 for Lotus-Ford. The dubbed ‘British Invasion’ saw Clark and Lotus Team Principal Colin Chapman dominate the 49th running of the race, leading an amazing 190 of the 200 laps, the most since and became the first driver to win the race with a rear-engined car. In winning, the Scotsman, who was also a two-time Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion and British Touring Car Champion with Lotus, became the first non-American winner of the Indy 500 since Dario Resta won in 1916. He also became the first and only driver to win the 500 and the F1 World Championship in the same year, despite sacrificing racing in the Monaco Grand Prix to race at Indianapolis.

The only other driver to lead that year was AJ Foyt, the legendary four-time winner of the Indy 500, but Clark was untouchable all race long, having qualified on the front row on pole day and jumped into the lead at the start, relinquishing the lead only briefly during the early running before racing away to take the chequered flag. To celebrate the fifty-year anniversary of Clark’s victory at the Brickyard, the Lotus-Ford Type 38 will be brought back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, to take part in the festivities surrounding the 99th running of the biggest spectacle in American motorsport.

Indy 500 Memories – Jim Clark wins in 1965 was last modified: May 21st, 2015 Highlights from the 49th running of the Indianapolis 500 | Fox News Highlights from the 49th running of the Indianapolis 500 Published April 05, 2016 WINNER: Jim Clark AVERAGE SPEED: 150.686 mph WHAT HAPPENED: British driver Jim Clark started from the front row and led the most laps (190) since Bill Vukovich led 195 in 1953. Clark became the first driver to win the Indy 500 and Formula One World Championship in the same year. Mario Andretti, the 1969 winner, made his debut in the race. Cursed? Nope, he finished third. NOTABLE: The race aired on ABC Sports for the first time under the "Wide World of Sports" banner.

Advertisement Highlights from the 49th running of the Indianapolis 500 Highlights from the 49th running of the Indianapolis 500 WINNER: Jim Clark AVERAGE SPEED: 150.686 mph WHAT HAPPENED: British driver Jim Clark started from the front row and led the most laps (190) since Bill Vukovich led 195 in 1953. Clark became the first driver to win the Indy 500 and Formula One World Championship in the same year. Mario Andretti, the 1969 winner, made his debut in the race. Cursed? Nope, he finished third. NOTABLE: The race aired on ABC Sports for the first time under the ''Wide World of Sports'' banner. Reblog Indy 500 Race Report from 1965: Indy at 100 – Racing By Warren Zehner May 25, 2011 In 1961, Jack Brabham came to the Indianapolis 500 in a 2.7-liter Cooper-Climax and finished ninth.

In 1962, Mickey Thompson arrived at the Speedway with two Buick-powered rear-engined cars, both of which looked very promising but neither of which finished the race. In 1963, after Dan Gurney had bought Colin Chapman an airline ticket and convinced Ford that a Lotus-Ford combination could win the race, two rear-engined Lotuses with pushrod Ford engines finished second and seventh. In 1964, except for an unfortunate choice of tires, Jim Clark's Lotus-Ford would have won. In 1965, there was no doubt at all that a rear-engined car was going to win (27 of the 33 starters were in rear-engined cars and very little doubt that a Ford engine (17 engines out of the 33) would power the winning car. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below So there was little surprise at Jim Clark's victory in the Ford-powered Lotus. The only surprise came over the ease with which the victory was accomplished. Clark led 190 of the 200 laps of the race and after A. J.

Foyt's Lotus-Ford broke its transmission (a German ZF) in lap 114, no one even threatened the little Scot. The car that Clark drove this year was a new Lotus 38. It was a typical Lotus with semi-monocoque chassis, lie-down driving position, ZF gearbox, spidery-looking suspension arms and so on. It was slightly wider in the track than last year's Lotus and the frontal area was slightly smaller. The reduction in frontal area was made possible by the use of a smaller radiator, which in turn was made possible by the decision to use cooler-running alcohol fuel rather than gasoline as last year. Most Popular There was little doubt too that the Chapman-Lotus-Clark combination held a psychological advantage. In 1963 and 1964, Clark had come within a small miscalculation of winning the race. This year Team Lotus acted like it wasn't going to make a miscalculation of any sort. To begin with, Chapman and his men made the Indy race a major part of their effort this year.

Clark passed up running at the Monaco GP, for example, and wasn't popping back and forth across the ocean for other races as he had in past years. When the track opened for practice, the car was ready to run. The first program undertaken as to run a series of full-load tests. I his was done to enable Chapman to decide what tires to use. Last year, the two Team Lotuses qualified on Dunlops, then discovered they were going to have trouble, which they did, And it led directly to their failure to finish the race. They tried both Goodyear and Firestone (Dunlop declining to make Indy tires this year), and experienced a trace of the chunking problem that was later to plague Goodyear. Ultimately, they settled on Firestones. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below With their tire questions answered, Team Lotus then concentrated on going quickly for the qualifying session. This went smoothly, Clark qualifying second fastest (next to Foyt), which put him in the middle of the front row. Next to Clark was Dan Gurney in the second of the new Lotus 38s.

Gurney's Lotus was being attended to by his own crew this year and he was committed to Goodyear tires, as was Foyt. This gave Goodyear a 2-to-l score for the front row, which rather put Firestone's nose out of joint inasmuch as it had furnished tires for the last 41 consecutive winners. About the tires, just to get that part of the story out of the way, it went like this: The compound used on the Goodyears was slightly softer than that of the Firestone tires—a shore hardness in the range of 61-63 for Goodyear compared lo 62-65 for Firestone—and the tread was slightly deeper (7/32nds versus 5/32nds). Though it had not come to light during the early running when most were running light loads and short distances, the Goodyears began to chunk (lose bits of tread) just after the first weekend of qualifying when Foyt and others began doing full-load, long-distance runs to check out gas consumption and handling. Goodyear's first report was that a defect in the manufacturing process had caused the chunking.

A "blade fold," it was called, but hardly anyone bought this story. It sounded too much like a framistat. The tires were obviously running too hot and the obvious solution was to reduce the tread depth. But USAC's rules state that the same tires must he used in the race as were used in qualifying and Firestone was watching very carefully to see that the tires weren't changed. USAC unequivocally denied permission for Goodyear to grind some of the tread off the tires but did permit such tires to be used during practice while Goodyear attempted to find another solution. What happened, ultimately, was that a couple of drivers were sent over to the oval at nearby Indianapolis Raceway Park to "scrub in" the Goodyears that were to be used in the race. USAC accepted this. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below As it turned out, no one had any tire trouble during the race. The Goodyears did not chunk, did not wear out. So far as the finishers went, the first eight cars were on Firestones, but the tire story was only a sidelight.

Goodyear got its foot in the door, which it failed to do last year, and will undoubtedly return in 1966. The big story was the performance of the Powered-by-Ford Lotus of Jim Clark. As related earlier, Team Lotus answered their questions about tires, prepared for qualifying, then qualified Clark in the middle of the front row. This accomplished, Jim went back to Scotland to relax at the sheep farm and didn't return until just before the race. This also tended to intimidate the opposition, as the usual Indy procedure is to worry and fiddle and build up the tension. Everybody else was having trouble, almost. The Ford engines were showing a distressing tendency to have throttles stick open, there was a rash of troubles with rear suspension components and some drivers were showing their lack of familiarity with rear-engine cars by losing control. These things, or combinations thereof, led to encounters with the walls by such worthies as Foyt (ex-Lotus), Jones (ex-Lotus), Lloyd Ruby (Halibrand-Ford), Don Branson (Watson-Ford), Jim Hurtubise (Halibrand-Ford) and several others. The most dramatic trouble was that of Rodger Ward. A. J.

Watson had built two new monocoque cars for this year's race. Nice looking, pointy-nosed, Ford-powered machines, both of them. One for Ward, the other for Don Branson. Branson smote the wall briskly the Friday before qualifying but got it back together in time to make the lineup the first weekend. Ward's car never did get sorted out. First there was engine trouble that eluded correction even by experts from Ford. Then, when the engine was finally running decently, the car behaved so strangely that Ward couldn't hot-lap consistently. Twice the first day of qualifying, Ward went out to qualify and twice his crew called him in because be wasn't going fast enough. As it turned out, his first run might have put him in the race but it didn't seem fast enough at the lime. On the final Saturday of qualifying, getting desperate as he tried lo get up to speed. Ward lost it and banged the wall. The car was stuck back together again hut there was too little time to get it to handle properly and Rodger wound up with the 34th fastest time to miss his first 500 in 15 years.

The Cinderella story of the 1965 500 would have to be that of Parnelli Jones. Parnelli has never made a secret of his lack of enchantment with rear-engined cars. All month everything went wrong. He lost a wheel early in the month, qualified fifth fastest the first day of qualifying and on the following Friday had a suspension bit break and put him in the wall, hard. The car was put back together in time for Parnelli to make a few laps during carburetion runs the Saturday before the race but not enough for him to develop any feeling of confidence in the car. His car owner, J. C. Agajanian, said after the race that Parnelli had had so little confidence in the car before the race that he said he was going to give it a try and if it wasn't right he was going to bring it right hack into the pits. As it was, Parnelli said later that the rebuilt Lotus ran better and handled better than it had all month. He hung on in fourth place until Dan Gurney dropped out, then moved up again when Foyt departed.

His luck was so good during the race that he was able to cross the finish line and coast to a stop out of gas and still hold off third-place Mario Andretti. Most Popular But nobody was threatening Clark. He simply had the legs of everybody else at the Speedway. When the final laps had run out he had averaged a record 150.686 mph, the first foreign driver to win at Indy since Dario Resta did it in 1916 driving a Peugeot 300 miles at an average of 84.00 mph. It was the first victory for a car with a British-built chassis, the first time a Meyer-Drake hadn't been in the winner's circle since George Robson won the 1946 race in a 6-cyl Sparks-engined Thorne Special and the first time that a Ford-powered car had won the race. It was a historic occasion. There was a total of 24 Ford-engined cars entered at Indy this year, 17 of which actually made the starting held.

These engines were slightly improved versions of the dohc introduced last year, and were putting out 495 bhp at 8800 rpm compared with 475 at 8000 of 1964. Almost all the Fords were set up to run on alcohol-based fuels (the Sheraton Thompson cars of Foyt and Al Unser being two of the exceptions who were using gasoline) and were getting 3-4 mpg. This year's regulations required two pit stops (to reduce fuel loads) so 60-gal tanks were about the right size. This was the amount of fuel Clark's Lotus was carrying and his two stops were as quick and neat this year as they had been slow and sloppy in past years. Not everyone was carrying this quantity of fuel, strangely enough. Al Miller drove superbly in Carroll Morton's rebuilt Lotus-Ford but with a fuel capacity of only 35 gal he had to stop four times and was lucky lo squeeze into fourth place. Ford did what it could to help entrants using its engines. After the final qualifying sessions, for example, it flew all the Fords back home for service.

There wasn't time to tear down and rebuild the entire lot, obviously, but all got inspected, freshened up where needed and dyno tuned before being returned to the Speedway. This care paid off, inasmuch as the Ford engines had little trouble during the race. Cold comfort, though, that is for those that did. Like Dan Gurney. Dan had qualified third fastest and was stroking along an unstrained third in the early laps. Then a gear in the train at the front of the engine let go and Dan was through after only 42 laps. In general, though, the Ford-engined cars that retired were put out by something other than engine failure. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below The last stand of the 4-cvl Meyer-Drake wasn't very impressive. Louis Meyer and Dale Drake, already having read the handwriting on the wall, didn't build any new engines this year though they did make spare parts and try to help those entrants using the familiar old air-pump. The strongest of the Offies were probably developing about 450 bhp, which was simply not enough to get the job done.

There were 14 cars in the race using Meyer-Drake engines, 10 of which were rear-engined, but during the race there wasn't one of them anywhere within striking distance of the first three places. Several of the rear-engined Offies were impressive, considering that they weren't Fords. Jim McElreath charged up to sixth in the early going in a Brabham-based Offie then faded with rear end trouble. Walt Hansgcn was right with McElreath and got up to fifth place in his Huffaker MG Liquid Suspension Special before slowing and finally retiring with overheating. Rookie Bill Foster impressed observers with the speed of his Vollstedt car when his car was running right. When the final flag fell there were four Offie-powered cars still running, the best placed of which was rookie Gordon Johncock's Watson roadster in fifth place. Johncock achieved that position through sheer steadiness and reliability, you understand, as his car was far from the fifth fastest in the race. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below There was only one other kind of engine in the race, the supercharged Novi, two of which made the starting field.

The older car, a roadster driven by Jim Hurtubise, blew its gearbox on the first lap. The other, the 4-wheel-drive Ferguson-Novi of last year, screamed along in sixth and seventh places before retiring after 180 mi with an oil leak, This car, driven by Bobby Unser, was pressed into service when the newer, lighter 4wd Novi was wrecked during practice when unlucky Unser couldn't avoid a car that spun in front of him. There were other engines that didn't make the race at all, though. Mickey Thompson was the best-known of the non-qualifiers. His front-engine, front-wheel-drive car used a Thompson variation on a small Chevrolet V-8, but the engine project was so far behind schedule that the car never really got a chance. Driver Bob Mathouser almost got it up to qualifying speed with the third (and strongest) engine, but a broken crank eliminated their last hope. Jerry Eisert had Traco-modified pushrod Chevrolet engines in the two cars he'd built for J. Frank Harrison, but the combination of rookie cars and rookie drivers conspired to defeat whatever chances this entry had.

There was also a Maserati-powered car, a much-modified V-8 reportedly having 445 bhp, entered by Dan Gurney's old sponsor, Frank Arciero. Using a rear-engined chassis built by Pete Weisman, the car looked pretty good with rookie driver Al Unser, but it didn't come close to getting into the race. Most Popular All this discussion is purely academic, of course, as this year's Indy was a Lotus-Ford show from beginning to end. And because all the Ford engines were equal (albeit some may have been a bit more equal than others), it must have been the Lotus chassis that really made the difference. Was the Lotus all that much better? Yes. it probably was. The best performance by a non-Lotus came from the Al Dean entry built by Clint Brawner and Jim McGee and driven by the sensational rookie, Mario Andretti. The car that Brawner built for Andretti was not an imitation Lotus, as so many of the rear-engined cars were, but had a large-tube chassis more along the lines of the older Brabham.

It weighed 1340 lb, well above the 1250-lb minimum established for this year's race and it was not only the first rear-engined car Brawner ever built but also the first rear-engined car Andretti ever drove. It was also the only car on the track that was not offset to the left. It has long been Indy practice to offset the chassis (even the Lotuses do it) to give better left turn performance and to even up the tire wear, but Andretti ran the entire race on the same set of Firestones and had no more tire wear than anyone else. It is hard to believe that this lack of traditional offset gave Andretti any advantage in lap speed (though it may not have cost him any. considering that the modern rear-engined car has enough rubber on the track to assure maximum traction). It is probably more likely that the difference between Andretti's speed and the speed of other non-Lotus-Ford entries was Andretti himself. So is anybody going to beat the Lotuses at Indy next year? It doesn't seem likely.

If this year's race proved anything it proved that you shouldn't expect to beat this year's Lotus with a last year's Lotus. It also proved that an imitation Lotus is hardly the same thing as a genuine Lotus. Colin Chapman and the men from Cheshunt may not fit the Indy image very comfortably, but they are years ahead in experience with this kind of car. It is possible that some of the other British chassis builders will come up with a Lotus-beater for next year—the Lolas looked nice this year but were too new and unsorted to have a chance—but, then again, nobody in Grand Prix racing is building a chassis that is superior to the Lotus, so why expect they'll do it for Indy? It's the era of the Lotus. And that's almost as undeniable as the fact that it's also the era of the Ford. Who might challenge the superiority of the Lotus-Ford combination? At the moment, there doesn't seem to be anyone. Except Ferrari. Ferrari has engines that could be tailored to Indy size, engines that have more cylinders (12) than the Fords (8) and which need take a back seat to no one in sheer potential.

It also seems likely that Ferrari could come up with a chassis that would be competitive at Indy. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't appear that Ferrari is interested in challenging the Lotus-Ford reign at Indy. It would be a tremendously expensive project: one that would require Ford-like money to undertake. Which Ferrari doesn't have. So it's the era of the Lotus, the era of the Ford and, undeniably, it's also the era of the smooth little driver, Jimmy Clark. The message has hardly ever been more clear. More from Road & Track: Jim Clark in the Lotus-Ford #82 before the Indianapolis 500 Race, May 31, 1965 - The Henry Ford Jim Clark in the Lotus-Ford #82 before the Indianapolis 500 Race, May 31, 1965 Jim Clark in the Lotus-Ford #82 before the Indianapolis 500 Race, May 31, 1965 Share Summary Driver Jim Clark gives a thumbs-up signal from the cockpit of his Lotus-Ford Type 38 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1965.

Clark won that year's Indianapolis 500 in his Formula One style car -- the first rear-engine car to win at Indy. The British-built racer was powered by a 495-horsepower Ford V-8 engine. Driver Jim Clark gives a thumbs-up signal from the cockpit of his Lotus-Ford Type 38 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1965. Clark won that year's Indianapolis 500 in his Formula One style car -- the first rear-engine car to win at Indy. The British-built racer was powered by a 495-horsepower Ford V-8 engine. Artifact Leonard Wood reflects on 1965 Indy 500 victory with Jim Clark | FOX Sports Leonard Wood reflects on 1965 Indy 500 victory with Jim Clark Leonard Wood sits in a replica of Jim Clark's 1965 Indianapolis 500 race-winning Lotus. May 20, 2015 at 4:48p ET 0 Shares STUART, Virginia — There are only a few routes to get to this picturesque community tucked away in the mountains and valleys of Southern Virginia.

It’s a trip into history — of bygone times when life was simple and devoid of today’s complications. In fact, it’s difficult to get a strong cell signal because of the hills and mountains that surround this Virginia community that was named after Confederate General Jeb Stuart. This community also has a strong link to the Indianapolis 500. It was 50 years ago that a NASCAR pit crew came to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to service Colin Chapman’s famed Lotus Powered-by-Ford driven by the most glamorous Formula One driver of the day — Scotland’s Jim Clark. After Clark scored a convincing win in the 49th Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1965, the Wood Brothers Racing Team experienced the thrill of victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That was 29 years before Jeff Gordon won the Inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994 — the first NASCAR race ever helped at the "World’s Most Famous Race Course." "In a way it seems like it was 50 years ago and in a way it don’t," 80-year-old Leonard Wood told FOXSports.com in an exclusive interview at Wood Brothers Racing Museum.

"They restored the Lotus five years ago and took it to England in the Goodwood Festival. It was like that car was shoved in the corner and forgotten and then when we went to England the car was restored and it was like being back in the Winner’s Circle. "It was so rewarding. It was like living it all over again. Some of the Lotus crew was there and that was very rewarding." Four Wood brothers — Glen, Leonard, Delano and Ray Lee — along with fellow crew members Kenny Martin and Jim Reed were responsible for the pit stops that day for not only the race-winning car driven by Clark, but also Lotus teammate Bobby Johns. Chapman and Clark had been serious contenders to win at Indianapolis in 1963 and 1964 but lost both years. They determined one way to get an advantage in 1965 was with superior pit stops and that is when John Cowley of the Ford Motor Company contacted Glen Wood to bring the famed Wood Brothers of Stuart, Virginia to Indianapolis. It was Cowley, the Ford Motor Company engineer and chassis designer, who approached Leonard’s older brother Glen about going to the Indianapolis 500 to serve as the pit crew for the Lotus.

At that time, the Wood Brothers Racing team was one of the prime factory-backed teams in NASCAR’s top division. Tiny Lund had driven the Wood Brothers Ford to victory in the 1963 Daytona 500. The Wood Brothers were famous for bringing speed to pit road as the best NASCAR pit crew of the day. Pit stops at the Indianapolis 500, though, often took 50 seconds or more. Ford had the idea that a fast race car along with a fast pit crew would get Clark to victory. Leonard Wood built a stunning replica of the 1965 Indy 500 winning car But how would the Lotus crew react to stepping aside and turning their creation over to a NASCAR team? Remember, at that time NASCAR was a very regional sport and the Indianapolis 500 was unquestionably the biggest race on the planet. "We didn’t know how they would react," Wood said. "Sometimes in a situation like that people resent you being there. They didn’t show any sign of resentment and were glad we were there. They turned us loose on the stop.

But five years ago, one of the crew members that was there said when we came into Gasoline Alley and into the garage and started talking, they hoped we could pit faster than we could talk. "We really hit a home run with that." At that time, IndyCar pit stops had an over-center jack stand on roller-skate wheels on the back of it. When a pit crewmember pulled down on it, the car would lift up. NASCAR has always used the manual jacks to get a car off the ground. "It as a very quick way to jack it up being as light as they were," Wood recalled. "The hoses – one was shorter and one was longer — but we had to figure out exactly where to stop the car and the position of the tank so if he stopped too short it wouldn’t reach and if he overshot the pit it would buckle the hoses. "Jim Clark said, ‘You just tell me where to stop.’ Boy, did he pit it on the money." The Wood Brothers also rethreaded the knockoff lock nut on the wheels so they would spin off quicker. The key was to hit it once with the hammer and it would spin completely off.

They used graphite to polish the threads and create as less friction as possible. "The big thing was the four dial pins in the hub that the wheel lines up on," Wood said. "When we got up there they were so tight you couldn’t get the wheel off. So we re-honed those so they would be snug but still come off quickly." Letterman relives fondest Indy 500 moments ahead of final 'Late Night' show Prior to the 1965 Indianapolis 500, the Wood Brothers had competed at the biggest NASCAR speedways of the day – Daytona, Charlotte, Darlington and Atlanta. Arriving at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, however, was "hallowed ground." "We had always listened to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio," Wood said. "It’s always been a special place in our hearts — the Indianapolis 500. Ford Motor Company took us up there in 1964 and we all sat in the third turn grandstand.

That wasn’t a good day because Dave MacDonald had driven for us at Riverside, California and he was killed in the Indy 500 that year." The trip to Indy one year later was when innovation came to pit road by the Wood Brothers. "In 1965, we spent the whole week up there preparing the car and listened to them tune the motors," Wood said. "They pulled the race cars through Gasoline Alley with lawnmowers. We went through inspections and the inspector wanted to know why we had the outlet on the gas tank up so high. We had a very giant, venturi inside and we had to have the same distance full circle so that put the center of it way off the floor. All the others had it on the bottom. The inspector wanted to know why it was so high and I told him it was just up there. "He said, ‘I bet you $1,000 you can’t pour 20 gallons a minute out of that tank.’ That’s not very much. We didn’t bet with him but when we got through we checked the flow and we put 58 gallons in 15 seconds. We knew we were going to be under 20 seconds.

We practiced connecting and disconnecting and doing it all at once so if anybody was watching they didn’t know what was going on." The team never changed tires during the race but measured the tread depth on every pit stop. Lund also won the 1963 Daytona 500 on just one set of tires. "We had two pit stops and my brother, Ray, had a gauge to measure the tread depth," Wood said. "We had treaded tires back then and when they wore down they were actually faster. We had a third of the tread left when the race was over." There were just two pit stops in the 1965 Indy 500 for the Wood Brothers to show their "Pit Road Ballet." Back then, the cars carried an enormous 58 gallons of fuel. Today’s IndyCars carry much less fuel and the 99th Indianapolis 500 will have nine or more pit stops. Hinchcliffe thanks 'heroes' after life-threatening crash at Indy "When we were fueling the car, I was leaning against the car and you could feel it swell up," Wood said.

"You could tell the way that Lotus was designed it was a fast car." Chapman, his crew and Clark all treated the Wood Brothers with tremendous respect. The plan was if everything went normal in the race, the Wood Brothers would make two pit stops. But if something out of the ordinary happened, he had the Lotus crew on standby. The race went flawlessly except for the wardrobe. "Back then, we didn’t’ have time to get uniforms so they told us to wear the Cup uniforms – the Wood Brothers 21 Ford," Wood recalled. "Remember, we pitted NASCAR driver Bobby Johns as well in the second team car and he finished seventh. We pitted both cars but the leader had preference. He had the stop first. We had several NASCAR drivers go up there in that era and give it a try." A.J. Foyt was the defending winner of the Indianapolis 500 at that time and had won several NASCAR races for the Wood Brothers. "We were very good friends and when we walked in, he invites us in to his garage – how he has his car and how he has it fixed," Wood said. "Then A.J.

asked, ‘By the way, what are you guys doing up here?’ When we told him, you can imagine what he called us." The legendary Clark was a calm, easy-going driver and a great person to work with according to Wood. Clark was an icon of the day. "Dan Gurney praised Jim Clark something unreal," Wood said. "I asked Dan, ‘Is Clark better than you? I can’t believe anybody is better than Dan Gurney’ Dan said, ‘If you make a lap and make every turn and go in the turn as hard as you can go and brake as hard as you can and barely get the car slowed down for every turn if you don’t do that every lap he will beat you.’ "After we got acquainted with the road racers Jim Clark was ‘The Man’ in Formula One." Getting Clark into victory lane at Indianapolis that year was the top priority for the Ford Motor Company. That is why the Wood Brothers were called into action including Glen, Leonard, Ray Lee, Kenneth Martin, Ralph Edwards and Jim Reid. "To win the Indianapolis 500 was huge," Leonard recalled. "It didn’t get any bigger than that.

Big Bill France (NASCAR founder and president) was sitting up there in the stands and said, ‘That’s my boys.’" The Wood Brothers also made believers out of the skeptical IndyCar crowd, including 1957 winner Sam Hanks, who was working as a broadcaster that day. "Sam Hanks, a former winner, was commentating and when we made the first stop in 17 or 18 seconds he said, ‘You can bet they didn’t get it full. A green crew and all that. They will be back in – you can count on that.’ We kept running and he said, ‘I don’t understand it. It must be a fuel mixture.’ So they sent a runner down there to see what kind of fuel we were running. The year before was pressurized fuel system. This was the first year it was gravity flow and they thought we would be in the pits for a full minute. "We caught them all by surprise. "We got the most publicity we ever got in our life. We had newspaper clippings coming from Ford that could make a catalog.

We hit a home run that day." Glen’s son, Eddie, didn’t make the trip to Indianapolis because he had school that day back in Stuart, Virginia. But he proved to be just as innovative as his father and uncles by sneaking a transistor radio into his sixth grade classroom. "Remember this was 1965 so it wasn’t like an iPod; it was about the size of a pack of cigarettes," Eddie Wood said of the radio. "I took that little thing you stick in your ear and ran that up my sleeve with the radio in my pocket. I wore a long-sleeve shirt and it was almost summertime so it was hot. I remember everybody asking, `Why are you wearing a long-sleeve shirt?’ I was listening to the race during class. "Fortunately, I didn’t get busted for it." By the time the race ended, young Eddie was on the school bus for the ride home and didn’t have to hide the radio any longer. "I remember how cool it was they were part of that," Eddie recalled of the Woods. "They kept talking on the radio broadcast about the pit stops. It was the first time a green car had won, a rear-engine had won and a Ford had won.

I remember the announcers saying their total time on pit road was quicker than the next best time of one stop. They were done for the day in 18 seconds when people were spending 45 seconds for one stop. There are so many firsts that happened that day. The way the pit stops and fueling was done that day set the standards for the next 50 years as did the rear-engine part of it." Today, Glen is 89 years old and Leonard 80. While they remain part of the original Wood Brothers, the next generation of 63-year-old Eddie and his brother, Len, are in charge of the team. But the Wood Brothers know what it takes to win big races, as 20-year-old Trevor Bayne became the youngest Daytona 500 winner in history in 2011. Bayne joined David Pearson in 1976 and Tiny Lund in 1963 as drivers that won the Daytona 500 for the Wood Brothers. In 1965, Wood never believed that NASCAR would ever compete at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Ironically, the Wood Brothers pitted in the same pit stall that Clark was assigned in 1965 for the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994. Leonard Wood will be at this year’s 99th Indianapolis 500 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Clark’s 1965 Indy 500 win. He arrives at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday and will be honored throughout the weekend in a variety of activities. "The Indy 500 is still the Indy 500," Wood said. "There are so many celebrities there. The pre-race is one of the big highlights of the event. And the history there is unmatched by any other race." Leonard Wood should know because 50 years ago, he was part of a very special chapter in the history of the Indianapolis 500. ** Be sure to catch Bruce Martin’s Honda IndyCar Report on RACEDAY on FOX Sports Radio every Sunday from 6-8 a.m. ET.

0 Jim Clark - 1963, 1965 Jim Clark Share He never intended to make racing a way of life, let alone become the best in the world in a sport that for him began as farm boy's hobby. And when the sport took Jim Clark's life the racing world mourned the loss of one of its best-loved champions, the unassuming Scottish driving genius whose personal integrity and admirable human qualities endeared him to fans and rivals alike. Nearly invincible in the car, he seemed vulnerable out of it and was always a reluctant hero. Few champions were as dominant. Fewer still are remembered so fondly. 1 / 5 1962: Jim Clark of Team Lotus signs autographs for fans. © Sutton Images Monte Carlo, May 1963: Jim Clark took pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix but then retired his Lotus 25 from the race. He was classified eighth, his lowest placing of the year. © Schlegelmilch Spa, June 1963: Jim Clark came from eighth on the grid to win the Belgian Grand Prix by almost five minutes from the Cooper of Bruce McLaren. It was his first of seven victories en route to his first world title.

© Schlegelmilch Brands Hatch, July 1964: Reigning champion Jim Clark checks the mirrors on his Lotus 25 before practice for the British Grand Prix. He went on to win the race, the last of his three victories that year. © Sutton Images Nurburgring, August 1965: Jim Clark celebrates the German Grand Prix win that brought him his second world title with Lotus team boss Colin Chapman (right). © Schlegelmilch James Clark, junior, was born on March 4, 1936, and brought up with his four sisters on the family farm in Scotland's Berwickshire hills near the border with England. There was plenty of room to roam around the Clark's large acreage where flocks of pedigree sheep grazed peacefully and where Jim Clark would always feel most at home. It was worlds away from international motorsport, a subject he first read about in books and magazines when, at 13, he went to a private school in Edinburgh, where he also played cricket and was quite good at hockey. When it came to using vehicles for sporting pursuits Jim had to overcome parental opposition to using them for anything other than utilitarian purposes.

Having first driven the family car around the fields in secret, and then been allowed to drive farm tractors alone, Jim got his driver's license on his 17th birthday, by which time he had left school and was working full time on the farm. For personal transport he bought a Sunbeam Talbot and in 1956 began using it to compete in local rallies and driving skill tests. He soon graduated to winning club races in a variety of sportscars entered for him by wealthy enthusiast friends, without whose encouragement he might have progressed no further. When he won he found being the focus of attention embarrassing. He also felt guilty about racing against his family's wishes. Goaded on by his friends, the reluctant racer began to take it more seriously, demonstrating an outstanding natural talent that amazed everyone, and certainly surprised the man himself. In 1958 Clark was given a sleek little Lotus Elite coupe to race at Brands Hatch, where he immediately impressed the winner in an identical car, Lotus founder Colin Chapman. Invited by Chapman to race a Lotus Formula Junior, Clark immediately excelled and was promoted to Team Lotus for the latter part of the 1960 Formula One season.

In Belgium that year he suffered through one of the worst weekends in Formula One history. Early in the race at Spa Chris Bristow crashed fatally in a Cooper. Clark just managed to avoid the terribly mutilated body as it lay on the track but his Lotus was spattered with blood. A few laps later Clark's friend and Lotus team mate Alan Stacey lost control when he was hit in the face by a bird and he was killed. Clark admitted that the gruesome disasters nearly put him off racing forever. Thereafter he hated Spa with a vengeance and yet he would win there four times in succession. In 1961 his first complete Grand Prix season was blighted by his involvement in a collision at Monza with the Ferrari of Wolfgang von Trips. Though Clark was innocent and unhurt, the death of von Trips and 14 spectators left him devastated and again he seriously considered retiring. But he was persuaded to stay by Colin Chapman, whose brilliance as a designer was developing along with the emerging genius of his star driver.

Next Previous 1 / 4 Brands Hatch, July 1966: Jim Clark in the Lotus 33 (right) battles with BRM’s Graham Hill (left) over third place during the British Grand Prix. Behind them is the Cooper of John Surtees. © Sutton Images Brands Hatch, July 1966: Reigning champion Jim Clark finished fourth in the British Grand Prix in the Lotus 33. © Sutton Images Watkins Glen, October 1966: Jim Clark celebrates his only win of the season, in the United States Grand Prix at the wheel of the BRM-powered Lotus 43. © Sutton Images Mexico City, October 1967: Having taken pole position, Jim Clark leads the season-ending Mexican Grand Prix in the Lotus 49. © Sutton Images Over the next four seasons the Clark-driven Lotus was mostly only ever beaten when the mechanical side of the equation failed to deliver. Chapman's innovative Lotus chassis powered by Climax V8 engines were exceptionally fast but notoriously unreliable. Clark only lost the 1962 championship because of an oil leak in the last race.

In 1963 everything held together and he stormed to victory in seven of the championship races and easily won his first driving title. In 1964 he was again deprived of the championship in the last race by an oil leak. In 1965 he won six of the 10 races and his second World Championship. By now Clark and Chapman were as close as brothers. Chapman greatly admired his sincerity, humility and personal integrity and said Clark was as impressive as a human being as he was driver. Clark was not technically-minded and relied on Chapman to translate his comments into engineering solutions. Even when the car was not right Clark's natural talent enabled him to drive around problems, though he often said he had no idea where his speed came from. The public warmed to the shy champion who shunned the limelight, which now extended to America where he became a star after winning the 1965 Indianapolis 500. He hated press conferences and was visibly uncomfortable making public appearances. Though admired and well-liked by his peers, none of them knew him well. Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart, both self-confident extroverts, found Clark to be just the opposite.

In the car he was the epitome of calm and controlled aggression. Out of it he constantly chewed his fingernails and was surprisingly indecisive, and had trouble choosing which restaurant to eat in. Next Previous 1 / 2 Mexico City, October 1967: Jim Clark takes his fourth and final win of the season at the Mexican Grand Prix, consolidating his third place in the drivers’ championship. © Sutton Images Watkins Glen, October 1967: Jim Clark won the United States Grand Prix for the second year in a row, leading home team mate Graham Hill for a Lotus one-two. © Sutton Images His championships brought him wealth and he became a tax exile in Paris. He drove to the races in a Lotus Elan (and later flew a Piper Twin Commanche he bought from Chapman), often with a female companion. He never married but confided to a girlfriend that his ambition was to settle down and have a family of his own on the farm in Scotland. He deliberately kept his contracts to a year at a time so he could be free to leave when he wanted. He nearly left after Lotus was less competitive in 1966, though his patience was rewarded with a return to form the next season.

A victory in the first Grand Prix of 1968 brought his total to 25, eclipsing the previous record set by the great Fangio. Like Fangio, Jim Clark seldom ever made a mistake and had very few accidents - which made his sudden death all the more difficult to comprehend. On April 7, 1968, his Lotus had a tyre failure in a F2 race at Hockenheim in Germany and he was killed. The racing world was in shock and many felt the heart had gone out of the sport. Colin Chapman said he lost his best friend. Graham Hill said what he would miss most was Jim Clark's smile. Text - Gerald Donaldson

Question: In 1965, who became the first British driver to win the Indianapolis 500?
Answer: Jim Clark