Like It Was

I'm not sure who this is meant to annoy, fanboys of Jimmy Clark or Sebastian Vettel.

The thing is that qualifying just wasn't that important in the 1960s. Racing was important though and here we find that Innes and Jimmy raced together 23 times for Team Lotus in Formula One with Innes winning 4 races with 3 seconds and a third, while Jimmy managed a second place and two thirds.

And for those who argue that Jimmy was just getting quicker, well in their last seven races together, after Innes returned from his Monaco tunnel crash, Ireland took 3 wins against a best finish of fourth for Clark - this without any team orders.

World's Most Expensive Car

So the ex-Innes Ireland Ferrari 250 GTO has sold for $35 million, which may well be more than the total true asset value of the Spanish banking sector.

This is the car, owned by the British Racing Partnership, in which Innes won the 1962 Tourist Trophy race at Goodwood. Throughout the summer of that year he used it as his road car in Radnorshire, indeed his wife of the time, Norma, would drive it into Kington to do her shopping.

In the current financial climate I'd say it was a pretty sound investment and heaven knows how much it would be worth if it was actually red rather than duck-pond green.

UPDATE:  I'm amazed at the number of journals and websites who believe this car's competition record was restricted to the 1962 Le Mans race.  It just goes to show how many "experts" just copy each other's articles.  It would have been easy enough for them to check out the facts, here for example.

Innes Ireland - The Golden Age of Motorsport

Since the blog started I've posted a lot about Innes Ireland, the Grand Prix driver who once lived at Downton House, New Radnor, so I guess I shouldn't ignore this hour-long documentary which has just appeared on youtube.

For Sale

Bankers with £500K+ to spare might be interested in this Aston Martin DB 2/4 Cabriolet which Bonhams will be selling at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Did Innes Ireland once own the car? Well Bonhams say he did, so it must be true.

I know Ireland drove Aston Martin roadcars for many years while Sir David Brown was involved with the company. Employed as a Consulting Engineer his onerous task was to use the latest Aston as his daily transport and report back occasionally on the car's performance.

Innes was particularly fond of a Bahama Yellow DBS V8 which, like the others he drove, was actually the property of the company, not Ireland himself. Eventually the car had to be swapped for a less colourful version, it had became too well known to speed cops up and down the country.

The car driven by Roger Moore in the youtube clip above taken from the 1970s TV show The Persuaders is actually a faux version of Innes's car, an older six cylinder version badged up to look like the V8.

Radnor Lad in a Daft Hat

A great snap of Innes Ireland pursuing one of his favourite hobbies, stalking game birds. In 1962 Innes earned £32,000 - anywhere between £500K and a million in present day terms. Mind you he did earn it, as his record for that year shows:

11/2, Daytona, 3 Hr, Ferrari 250 SWB, No7, retired lap 59
23/3, Sebring, 3 Hr, Austin Healey Sprite, No17, 7th
24/3, Sebring, GP d'Endurance Ferrari 250 TRI, No26, disq lap 128
1/4, Heysel, Brussels GP, Lotus 18/21, No2, 3rd
7/4, Oulton Park, GT Race, Ferrari 250 GTO, No3, 4th
7/4, Oulton Park, SC Race, Lotus 19, 1st
14/4, Snetterton, Lombank Tphy, Lotus 18/21, No6, retired lap 7
23/4, Goodwood, Glover Trophy, Lotus 18/21-Climax, No8, 3rd
23/4, Sussex Trophy, Lotus 19, No71, 1st
28/4, Aintree, 200, Lotus 18/21-Climax, No8, retired
28/4, Aintree, SC Race, Lotus 19, 1st
1/5, Circuit of Garda, Abarth 1000, No52, 2nd
12/5, Silverstone, Ferrari 156, No9, 4th
12/5, Silverstone, SC Race, Lotus 19, 1st
12/5, Silverstone, Saloon Car Race, Ford Zodiac, 1st in class
20/5, Zandvoort, Dutch GP, Lotus 24-Climax, No9, retired lap 61
27/5, Brands Hatch, BRSCC, Ferrari 250 GTO, 1st
3/6, Monaco GP, Lotus 24-Climax, No34, retired lap 63
9/6, Mosport, Players 200, Ferrari 246S, retired
11/6, Crystal Palace, Trophy, Lotus 24_BRM, 1st
17/6, Spa, Belgian GP, Lotus 24-Climax, No20, retired lap 8
23.24/6, Le Mans, 24 Hour Race, Ferrari 250 GTO, No20, retired lap 165, with Masten Gregory
1/7, Reims Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No30, 3rd
8/7, Rouen, French Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No36, retired lap 1
21/7, Aintree, British Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No32, retired lap 16
29/7. Indianapolis, Hoosier Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No11, retired
5/8, Brands Hatch, Guards Tphy, Lotus 19, 2nd
5/8, Brands Hatch, Peco Tphy, Ferrari 250 GTO, No76, 3rd
12/8, Karlskoga, Kannonloppet, Lotus 24-Climax, No4, 4th
18/8, Goodwood, Tourist Trophy, Ferrari 250 GTO, No15, 1st
18/8, Goodwood, SC Race, Lotus Monte Carlo, No11, 1st
26/8, Roskilde, Danish GP, Lotus 24-Climax, No10, 3rd
1/9, Oulton Park, Gold Cup, Lotus 24-Climax, No14, retired
1/9, Oulton Park, SC Race, Lotus 19, No15, 1st
11/9, Monza, Italian Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No40, retired lap45
22/9, Mosport, Canadian GP, Lotus 19, retired
30/9, Kent, Pacific NW GP, Lotus 19, retired
7/10, Watkins Glen, American Grand Prix, No15, 8th
14/10, Riverside LA Times GP, Lotus 19, 5th overall, 1st in class
21/10 Laguna Seca, Pacific GP, Lotus 19, retired
4/11, Mexico City, Mexican Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No15, 3rd
2/12, Nassau, TT prelim, Ferrari 250 GTO, No4, 2nd
2/12, Nassau Tourist Trphy, Ferrari 250 GTO, No 4, 3rd
8/12, Nassau, Texas Race, Ferrari 250 GTO, No4, 3rd
9/12, Nassau, Governor's Trophy, Lotus 19, No 6, 1st
16/12, Kyalami, Rand Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No5, retired
29/12, East London, South African Grand Prix, Lotus 24-Climax, No11, 5th

This was at the start of the jet set age with Innes able to race in Canada on a Saturday afternoon and still make it back for a Formula One race at Crystal Palace on Whit Monday - no time to practice though, Ireland started at the back of the grid, passed everyone and won the race. Making the Rand Grand Prix in South Africa, however, meant missing the prize-giving evening at Nassau in the Bahamas. The organisers were so pleased they withheld Ireland's race winnings.

At a time when most of our rock-stars were still pimply faced youths, racing drivers like Innes and actors such as Burton were pioneering the hell-raising lifestyle emulated by so many in the years to come. A good thing? Check out your local High Street on a Friday night.

Last of the old school, first of the new

Surprised to see an article about Innes Ireland in today's Sunday Herald newspaper.

Also very surprised to find that my long deceased Innes Ireland website has reappeared on the web, albeit in zombie like form.

The Time Between

Here's Innes Ireland explaining to British Racing Partnership chief mechanic Tony Robinson how he has just crashed out of the 1964 French Grand Prix at 135 mph. This is from an old BP film, the full version of which also has some footage of Innes flying his plane and at home in Radnorshire.

A feature of the film I found interesting was that Innes and Graham Hill, neither of whom came from well-off backgrounds, speak with those posh 1950s accents you hear in films of that period, while Mike Hailwood, a millionaire's son, doesn't. Mike was ten years younger than Innes and Graham and, I guess, a product of the more egalitarian 1960s.

Motor sport fans can spot Bette Hill, Bruce McLaren, his wife Pattie is on the pit counter, Americans Phil Hill and race winner Dan Gurney, Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Raymond Mays, Tim Parnell and is the bearded mechanic jazz musician Owen Maddock? I'd like to know who the kohl-eyed lass in the BRP pit is though.

One for Miss Marple

So is this latest piece of Innes Ireland Memorabilia really worth £35? At least it's genuine, unlike many of the "original" photographs you currently see for sale. Originally copied from magazines and books that is.

Who They?

A little quiz for any motor sport fan who still checks out the blog. It's the 1962 British Grand Prix - not 1961 - probably the most anglophone race in history and the cameraman obviously couldn't bear to film anyone who drove a non-English car. First eleven are straightforward, you only see the back of driver six but who else wore yellow overalls.

My guesses here:

Graham Hill, Ginther, McLaren, Maggs, Jim Clark, Trevor Taylor, Surtees, Salvadori, Brabham, Innes Ireland, Masten Gregory, Ian Bugess, Tony Settember, Jack Lewis, Wolfgang Seidel, Jay Chamberlain, Tony Shelly.

News

Here's a turn-up for the books, Sir Stirling wins the Innes Ireland Trophy. I wonder if they considered giving it to the guy who mugged Bernie? Sir Stirling telling it like it is to the Daily Telegraph here, and a little off-camera tale about Innes at the end.

Where Did You Get That Hat?

Innes Ireland's last two World Championship outings in 1966 were in privateer Bernard White's clapped out BRM P261. BRM seem to have been in the habit of selling on old bangers, talented faux Welshman Jack Lewis ran out of enthusiasm for the sport after he acquired one of the Owen Organisation's sell-ons.

Anyway Innes qualified 17th out of 19 starters in that year's US and Mexican races, both times having to retire with mechanical problems. A career that had promised so much certainly ended with a whimper.

Ages ago, on what was then the premier racing history forum on the net, I asked the question "Bernard White who he?" No-one really knew that much about him, which is rather typical of a scene where the history of cars takes precedence over people. There's gold in them thar cars after all. Well nearly eight years after posing the question my forum query was answered, Bernard was the brother of financial buccaneer Gordon White, the brains behind Hanson PLC.

One day we might get an answer to one or two other puzzlers. Was the first Yank to compete in F1, Robert O'Brien, actually a CIA operative? Did the Vicomtesse de Walchiers really exist or was her team a CIA front? Here we're harking back to the early 50s so I doubt anything is going to turn up on Wikileaks.

Anyway that's a rather chunky Innes with Bernard White, pictured at the 1966 Mexican Grand Prix. Hopefully Ireland was wearing the hat as a joke. A few months later and he would finally move out of Downton to leave New Radnor in peace. Any Ffransis Paine fans who have read this far may be interested to learn that Innes (or at least Innis) gets a couple of passing mentions in Crwydro Sir Faesyfed. I wonder if his name has been spelt correctly in the recent translation?

Next Stop New Radnor

The current issue of MotorSport has this snap of Ferrari 250GTO chassis number 3505GT on the cover.

As I've mentioned before, as well as racing the car at Le Mans and winning the Tourist Trophy for BRP during the summer of 1962, Innes Ireland also used the machine as a roadcar, driving it up to the circuits from his home in Radnorshire. His wife even used it to do her shopping.

How much is the car worth? Well Radio Two DJ Chris Evans recently paid £12 million for a GTO with a lot less sporting history. There again it was red ......

Give 'em an Asbo

Watched a TV programme about drummers and Keith Moon's penchant for driving cars into swimming pools. Of course this was just another example of rock stars copying the anti-social behaviour of an earlier generation of race drivers.

Innes Ireland usually gets the blame for parking a Hertz hire car in a hotel swimming pool in California back in the early 60s, although in reality the culprit was local sportscar driver Augie Pabst. It was seemingly done to settle a bet about headlights working underwater and Hertz weren't very pleased until Pabst pointed out that their advertising slogan of the day was "you park it, we collect it."

At this point I would post a photo of French GP driver Harry Schell's little road car neatly parked in his hotel bedroom, only the copyright police might not approve.

Off the Beaten Track

You realise your blog is getting unwieldy and maybe ready for the scrapheap when even the author can't dig out his old posts!

Anyway I've previously posted about, but can't find, the Innes Ireland memorial on a remote peninsula in Ross Shire. The sculptor responsible for the plaque has a website which includes a photo which shows, for once, the memorial in its proper context, with the Atlantic Ocean in the background. Check it out here.

Just Popping Down the Shops

Here's the cover of Autosport picturing Innes Ireland's 1962 Tourist Trophy winning Ferrari 250GTO chassis number 3505GT. Now there's a quote in the Lis book that confirms that Innes drove this car on the roads of Radnorshire:

"I used to take 3505 home quite often and drive it to the races I was taking part in. I remember driving it down to Brands Hatch on the road, when I arrived the mechanics put a hot set of plugs in it and changed the wheels and I drove it in the race, then drove it home again. My wife used to use it to go shopping, it was a very docile animal."

Wonder if anyone remembers this car piloted by Innes on the Radnorshire roads or even his wife taking it out shopping!

Freno Bene Si!

Innes Ireland, works Ferrari driver, it's something you read occasionally, usually when someone has a car or piece of memorabilia to sell. Yes, Innes did once race a Formula One Ferrari 156, nominally for the British Racing Partnership but in reality for the works, and yes, he did drive the legendary 250GTO to victory in the Tourist Trophy. Yet works driver is stretching a point. Perhaps if the fuel contracts could have been sorted out in 1962 he would have joined the Maranello team, but it is as a Lotus driver and, given his long association with the company as Consultant Engineer, as an Aston Martin man that Innes is more properly remembered.

Of course Innes was a student of motor racing history and also a romantic, so it is little wonder that he could declare that "the ambition of any racing driver worth his salt was to drive for Scuderia Ferrari". And although he never really achieved that lofty aim, his relationship with the Modenese stable is certainly worth recalling.

1962 was the year that Enzo Ferrari was so desperate to secure Stirling Moss's services that he agreed to enter a car for the Rob Walker team in the Formula One World Championship. A car, by the way, which was to race in Scottish racing blue rather than Italian red. As part of the deal Stirling would also drive Ferrari sports cars for the UDT-Laystall team and in this Innes Ireland was to be his co-pilot. Innes, for whom Stirling was always a hero, looked forward to the partnership with relish.

A February outing in the UDT-Laystall 250SWB (2735GT) in the Daytona Three Hour race, had seen Innes retiring after 59 laps with brake problems. Then came the first drive with Moss, the Sebring 12 Hour race, where they shared a 250 Testa Rossa (TR/61) entered by local Ferrari dealer Chinetti's North American Racing Team. Stirling has described the NART pit work at this meeting as chaotic and the car was disqualified for refuelling too early. The long delayed disqualification robbed Innes and Moss of victory, they were leading by two laps when they were eventually black-flagged. That was to be Stirling's last endurance sports car race, for he would soon suffer his career ending Goodwood crash. It was to this fateful Sussex meeting that Innes had driven up from Modena, in the new pale green UDT 250GTO (3505GT). The car in which he and Moss were due to attack the coming season. A journey that Innes has described as the most memorable drive of his life.

The Goodwood crash put paid to Moss's Ferrari plans and also the promising partnership with Ireland. A Sharknose 156 did turn-up at the Silverstone International Trophy meeting complete with Scuderia mechanics and technicians for Innes to drive, a tribute to Moss it was said at the time. Innes found a car with a superb gearbox, a V6 engine that no longer matched the power of the V8 Climax and poor handling that the Scot put down to the flexing of the spoked Borrani wheels. Fourth place was a good result for a machine that could no longer compete with the green cars.

Innes carried on without Moss in car 3505, retiring after fifteen hours at Le Mans while in seventh place and ending the European season with a memorable victory in the Tourist Trophy, a race that was won with a chassis still bent from a practice crash.

That winter Innes drove another 250GTO, the Texan Rosebud team's 3589GT in the Nassau races, a third place in the Nassau TT being soon overshadowed by his victory in the Governor's Trophy race in Rosebud's Lotus19. Innes continued to drive the Rosebud Ferrari in 1963, an early crash at Daytona being followed by a sixth place (third in Class) at Sebring with Ritchie Ginther as co-pilot. An experiment with a Ferrari engine in Rosebud's Lotus 19 nearly put paid to Innes that Fall. The Scot crashing into a marshall's car which had been foolishly parked in an escape road during practice for the NW Pacific GP in Seattle.

A long and no doubt painful recovery saw Innes back for the 1964 season, where he drove Ferraris for Colonel Ronnie Hoare's Maranello Concessionaires team. Let Innes describe that first outing at the Nurburgring for the Colonel's equipe:

"I tore out of the pits in a crescendo of noise and spinning wheels, glancing briefly over my shoulder. Up through the gears and away, for the first time at the 'Ring I felt free and confident as I chased after the leaders.

Although the 330P was more of a handful, more skitterish, more sensitive and more unforgiving than the 250GTO, it was also faster, more urgent in its voice, more challenging and even more exciting. But still it gave a wonderful feeling of security, that it wouldn't suddenly do anything nasty.

We fairly flew through the twists and turns, a touch of the brakes here and there, a flick of the steering wheel to point her at the apex of the next corner, then lots of throttle and a touch of opposite as we screeched past the earth bankings and trees as one, clipping them as if they didn't exist. Oh, the total joy and exhilaration of such moments, for they happen but seldom. The Foxhole held none of the usual terrors as we hurtled steeply downhill through its curves, foot hard down, flat out in fifth. The Flugplatz was an exciting anticipation of the moment of landing when a flick of the wheel took her round the following right-hander on full song without going anywhere near the brake pedal, Control and rhythm seemed to be absolute as we swallowed up the gap on those in front, that wonderful V12 engine willingly and happily revving its heart out on the long straight, the exhaust note bliss in my ears. Still we closed passing first one, then the leader and we were out in front. And still the rhythm flowed; we pulled away and left them behind and it was almost as if they weren't there at all. There was only that magical Ferrari and me living out a dream just for our own enjoyment. We sang in the wind and nothing could touch us."

Like his career, Innes's occasional Ferrari drives finally petered out, a sixth place at Le Mans in 1964, a sixth place in the 1965 Monza 1000KM race, and finally, an outing at Daytona in 1966 in the Drummond Racing Organisation's 250LM.

Who knows how Innes's career might have turned out if the petrol contracts had allowed him to join the Scuderia in 1962 as some had hoped. Enzo Ferrari would surely have approved of Innes's tigerish driving, but would Innes have found fulfillment in Modena's political arena. In any case it wasn't to be. Oh and the title of this piece? The words spoken by Enzo Ferrari after he jumped on the brakes at 125 MPH on the occasion in 1962 when he took an ashen-faced Innes out for a spin in a little baby prototype, the distant forefather of the Dino 246.

Innes and Chunky

An engineer himself, Radnorshire based F1 driver Innes Ireland had a high opinion of Lotus boss Colin Chapman's engineering ability: "If he was not a genius then he was bloody close to being one."

At the same time he can have had few illusions about the safety of the Lotus Formula One cars. Indeed Mike Taylor successfully sued Lotus for negligence when the steering column of his 18 broke in the ill-fated 1960 Belgian Grand Prix.

One of the Lotus mechanics of the time recalled those early days:

"Surely Innes Ireland must rate as the most unfairly treated driver of all time. History often can only relate to what the hacks and anoraks see or read for themselves; yet behind the scenes, the breakages that occurred in those days defied belief. Chassis breakages apart, no end of "minor disasters such as automatically disengaging gear ratios, total brake failure etc. were encountered by our drivers, who within a day or two were out in the same car 'hoping' that things would improve!"

"Once the Lotus 18 arrived things changed dramatically as we all see from the records, so I think it is unfair to dismiss the likes of 'MacGregor' when the torrid times that he, Cliff, Graham and Alan went through in the preceding 3 years were never experienced by the then up and coming drivers who enjoyed the benefits of Chapman's greatest reversal, rear-engined cars!"

John Surtees was one of those up and coming drivers and he recalled the incident that caused him to quit Lotus:

"Colin said to me, "John - you're my Number One and you can have your choice of team-mate, Innes or Jim."
"I don't know," I said. "I've had so many mechanical failures that I'm getting a bit suspicious of your green cars."
"Then we'll paint 'em black!" said Colin, and he prepared a contract giving me choice of second driver and saying that the cars would be painted black."

"I told him that I would like Jim Clark as my number two, as I got on well with him, but then a few days later Innes Ireland called me from Paris. He told me that he had a contract for 1960 and '61 which stated that he had choice of team-mate! "What the hell is going on?" he wanted to know."

I went to see Colin."It's not true." he said, "I've got no arrangement at all with Innes. We're fixing him up with the British Racing Partnership."

"Innes still insisted that he had everything in writing, so I fixed another meeting with Chapman, taking Innes with me. He brought his contract, which said exactly what he claimed, but Colin just shrugged the whole thing off, so I said "I'm sorry, but that's it" and I walked out."

Given the unenviable safety record of Chapman's cars perhaps Colin was hedging his bets. The chances of both Innes and Surtees surviving the 1960 season were not that good. Enzo Ferrari is often condemned for playing on the rivalries of his drivers, but at least his cars were safe!

Innes was still the Number One driver at Lotus at the time of his sacking in 1961, and this despite his serious crash in the Monaco Grand Prix, a fact recognized by Jabby Crombac in his semi-official biography of Chapman. "There was no doubt that sacking Ireland was rather a controversial decision because, at the time Innes was still a little faster than his less experienced team mate Jim Clark."

It was not a decision that Chapman could bring himself to convey to Innes face to face. Cedric Selzer, another Team Lotus mechanic confirmed, "The big problem was that everyone, except Innes, knew that he wasn't going to be retained."

Why was Innes sacked? Some like Trevor Taylor believe it was purely a matter of cash, for Innes was on 50% of starting money, while Taylor, his replacement, was only on 25%. Most likely Innes had upset Esso's Geoff Murdoch by giving up his car to BP driver Stirling Moss for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, when Stirling still had a chance of winning the 1961 World Championship for Rob Walker's team.

Maybe Innes was sacked because of the commonly held belief, repeated by Mike Lawrence in his eagerly awaited but disappointing biography of Chapman, that Innes sometimes turned up on the grid worse the wear for drink. Innes, who is never anything but painfully honest in his writings denied that he ever arrived on raceday with a hangover. Certainly if Innes was outdriving Clark while over the breathalyser limit then he must have been quite a driver when sober! The suggestion is clearly nonsense.

Finally we have to recognize the potential of Clark and Chapman's recognition of what was still an unfulfilled promise in 1961. Perhaps there was no single reason why Chapman sacked Ireland, it was a combination of things - the money, the grievances of the sponsors, Innes's feisty personality and Clark's more malleable nature. It was a poor reward for all that Innes had done to set the marque on the road to success.

Innes at Daytona

Bill France had been trying to get Innes to drive the Daytona 500 for years, ever since he had won the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen in 1961. In 1962, the Radnorshire based Scotsman had even turned up at the Florida track, where he caused a certain amount of mirth amongst the regulars by trying to open the welded door of a stocker. By 1967 Innes's road race drives were drying-up, he'd gotten a somewhat unfair reputation as a crasher, someone who took partying more seriously than racing, and this in a sport that was getting more serious by the minute.

The offer to drive the 1967 race must have been a godsend to Innes, who, contrary to popular misconception, was not a well-heeled toff. The starting money offered by France was going to be very welcome to a Scot whose domestic arrangements at that time were somewhat complicated to say the least. This was not some fly in and fly out arrangement, Innes was to spend a couple of weeks at Daytona in the lead up to the race, generally learning the ropes of the oval game. France had fixed a deal with the middle of the grid Ray Fox team for Innes to drive one of their Dodges. Not a new Dodge mind, but an old 65 Dodge Coronet - team mate Buddy Baker was allocated the 67 Charger.

Ireland was disconcerted by the understeering stocker and caused some consternation in practice by setting up the car to allow him to corner with a touch of oversteer. A few friendly words from Mario Andretti, in which the American pointed out the consequences to the tyres of coming through the bends with the front wheels in lane two and the rears almost in lane three, saw Innes hastily abandon his effort to teach the locals their own game. Over the years this episode has sometimes been used as evidence of road racer naivety, but what is usually forgotten is that Innes was the source of the tale. Unlike so many others in the ego driven racing world, Ireland was always big enough to tell a story against himself.

Innes got the feeling that the Fox team crew were not too impressed with the 175 mph laps he was reeling off in the 600 bhp Dodge, so he asked Baker to try out the older car and as his team leader's best time was just 0.04 mph faster, it was agreed that the rookie wasn't doing so bad. The second of the one hundred mile qualifying races saw Innes come in a very respectable 10th place which put him at 20th position on the grid of 50 starters for the 500 mile main event on 26th February.

Even as the high speed 500 progressed, Ireland was still learning the techniques of oval racing as he drafted Cale Yarborough's Ford to record laps of 178mph, his fastest yet. Innes had moved up steadily through the field to 10th place when his engine disintegrated on lap 126. The experts agreed that given his increasing pace the newcomer would have finished in the top five if the car had lasted the race. Stock Car Racing magazine was most impressed with the road racer's first outing on the high banks, commenting that he had compressed in a few days what many NASCAR drivers took years to acquiire. He had been gaining ground they said on some of the most formidable names in the sport, including eventual winner Andretti, and the likes of Petty, Yarborough and Pearson.

Despite the respect and welcome Innes received from the stock racing fraternity, he was not eager to take up the offers to race again during the rest of the season. He disliked the seriousness of it all, the 9 to 5 routine at the circuit followed by long hours back at the hotel, without the fun and good food of the European scene. He also did not have the same rapport with the mechanics as he had back home. Racing was becoming a business and Innes, as he often stated, was no business man.

Later in the year Bill France invited two other great Scots, Jimmy Clark and Jackie Stewart to participate in the American 500 at Rockingham. The terms were not right for JYS, who in many ways typified the new hard-nosed business attitudes that Innes abhorred. Jimmy, by contrast, was a racer who just couldn't turn down the opportunity to try something new. He drove a 67 Ford in the late October race for the frontline Holman-Moody team. Well off the pace set by his teammates in practice, the eventual race winner Allison and second placed Pearson, Clark was still learning the ropes and moving up through the mid field when his engine gave up the ghost on lap 144. Clark fans like to point to this foray as yet another example of their heroes versatility and greatness. No-one pays much mind to Innes's very similar outing earlier in the same season of course, but then what has fairness got to do with anything.

Here Today

Just a reminder that my Innes Ireland website will disappear into cyberspace later this month. Yahoo are taking down all their free sites and I don't feel like paying to keep it going. I guess in some ways the internet is like the manuscript age before the printing press and the permanency of books. Some things will last, some will be copied and survive in part, but most will just disappear.

What's in a Name

I'm not sure how much of a connection there is between Colin Chapman's outfit and the new Team Lotus which will be returning to the F1 grid in 2010. Perhaps as much as that between Stan Chapman's pub on the Tottenham Lane and it's current incarnation as the Funky Brownz Shisha Lounge. Of course what is important is the name and history which the new team will no doubt seek to capitalize on, no matter how tenuous the link.

An old Lotus mechanic once informed me that it was the likes of Innes Ireland, Cliff Allison and Graham Hill who took the development risks from which later drivers like Clark benefited. Those were the days when Chapman's cars usually fell apart during the race, and the mechanics could be found still welding a chassis on the grid.

Anyway, I wonder if anyone will remember that it was Innes who scored Lotus's first ever F1 victory and who also gave the team their first World Championship win? Of course even in the Eighties all that counted for little. Lotus sponsor Camel held a big post-race party to which all the F1 journalists were invited, with the sole exception of the correspondent of the American magazine Road and Track, who was somehow overlooked ..... one Innes Ireland.