Champion magazine’s glee with Jim Clark’s 1965 victory at Indianapolis knew no bounds. Boivent Duffar’s depiction of the 22-year old’s chilling experience that took him to his first race with D-type TKF9 when had had to abandon his bétaillère en transport (farm-lorry) for his voiture de course. Clark sped through a frosty night into the record books. At Full Sutton, near Pocklington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he was the first sports car driver to average 100mph on a British circuit.
The Border Reivers didn’t run to a transporter, so the D-type had been loaded on to Clark’s truck. April 1958 was unusually cold, so farm manager Bill Campbell had drained its radiator. Unfortunately, somebody had turned the taps back again so, when it came to refilling, he turned them the wrong way. The lorry was parked over straw, Campbell hadn’t heard the water leaking. Halfway to Berwick-on-Tweed it overheated and stopped.
There was nothing for it, Clark told Graham Gauld: “The D-type was unloaded. Ian Scott Watson drove his Porsche to Full Sutton, and I wrapped myself in sweaters and coats, set off into a snowstorm and drove to York. Went through Newcastle at 11 pm making a whale of a
