Word: prix
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...degree or another, in the world's biggest participant sport. Nearly everyone who drives a car thinks, at one time or another, about beating the "hot shoe" in the next lane. Auto companies do their best to enhance the illusion: naming cars "Le Mans," "Monza," "G.T.O.," "Grand Prix"; equipping them with bucket seats, tachometers, four-speed transmissions, and speedometers thoughtfully calibrated up to 160 m.p.h.-85 m.p.h. above the highest legal speed limit...
What's more, Clark loves his work. Not many Grand Prix drivers do. "This cruel sport," the U.S.'s Dan Gurney calls it. In the last 20 years, 50-odd drivers have been killed in Grand Prix racing, and the circuit has its share of men who soothe their jangled nerves with alcohol and drugs. Clark's nerves are fine. "When I'm going flat out, drifting through a corner, I'm not driving a car, really," says Jim. "I'm putting myself through that corner. The car happens to be under...
...start of a lasting friendship. "The formula for a champion race driver," says Chapman, "is 10% natural ability, 90% experience and dedication." His own dice with Clark at Brands Hatch had convinced him that Jim "had the 10% in full." Already hard at work on a revolutionary Grand-Prix-car design-a "monocoque" body shell that needed no tubular skeleton, was actually little more than a steerable gas tank on wheels-Chapman decided that Clark was just the man to drive it. If he could...
Clark had already contracted to drive a Grand Prix car for Aston Martin, but Aston Martin never got around to building it. So for most of two years, Clark putted around in Formula Juniors and sports cars, until finally, in the middle of the 1960 season, Aston Martin gave him a break, loaned him to Lotus in time for the Dutch Grand Prix...
...Taylor had crashed in one and nearly been killed; Allen Stacey had crashed in one and been killed. "I wouldn't drive a car like that," growled the U.S.'s Phil Hill. "You never know what piece is going to break off next." In the Dutch Grand Prix, Clark's gearbox broke; in the British Grand Prix, it was his suspension. In 1961, Jim finally was able to sign full time with Lotus, but even that didn't change his luck. "I can keep up with the other drivers," he said. "I just...