Jimmy Clark in twini Moke, 7th December 1963

[Pandora]

Just reading an article on Jim Clark which detailed how busy his first F1 championship winning year was with F1, F2, Indycars, Tasman, Saloon Cars etc. and came across this:

December 7th 1963: He drives a twin-engine Mini Moke in the televised Autopoint at Bagshot. He gets bogged in mud in the first heat but wins the remaining two.

Anyone heard of this event taking place? I have just about all the books on Jimmy, and I don't recall this ever being mentioned, or any photos. He's famous of course for wanting to try any kind of racing cars such as pre war ERA etc, so the twini isn't a huge surprise.

That said, I've never seen any mention of him ever driving a Lotus 7, which is odd, given the market his employers at Lotus were pushin g that car at!

Intrigued,

Al

[LMM76C]

Autopoint was a way to fill in winter afternoon TV schedules before rallycross was invented. Ostensibly a competition between the London Motor Club and the Army it was really everyone else vs the Army. Not that many events were run. Raymond Baxter was heavily involved. As the name implies, it was a point to point series of races, each between two vehicles, ranging from cars to military 6x6 wheeled things. Invariably the "car based" competitor would follow gravel tracks and the "military" vehicle would head in a straight line across country.

and you thought some of the weird Top Gear stunts were original....

[LMM76C]

Most of the books on JC forget to mention his earliest motorsport experience. Autopoint would not have been so strange to him as most might imagine.
History is close to accepting that he jumped into a Lotus Cortina on the 1966 RAC Rally and blew all the professional rally drivers away (and Graham Hill in a Cooper S was crap in comparison).
JC practised massively for the 66 RAC - coincidently at MoD "Bagshot" (Chobham) but also on Mike Cannon's farm, heavily tutored by Roger Clark. In comparison. Graham Hill had a couple of runs at Chobham in a Cooper S with Paddy Hopkirk sitting in. NGH didn't get on with fwd - but he'd been pretty quick on the 64 Monte in the Ford Falcon team and earlier in Sunbeam Rapiers. JC did what many anticipated on the 66 RAC - he overdrove the best car in the rally and stuffed it.
In case there are doubts from the above, I have always been a massive fan of JC both as a driver and as a person. My next door neighbour where I used to live on the south coast grew up on the next farm to his Edington Mains and worshipped JC. She was only 14 when he died but was well versed in his early rally exploits locally on Chirnside etc. and could point to gaps in hedges he created by going off. JC's biographer Graham Gauld later explained to me (when I was researching the 3 different works Lotus Cortinas JC used in preparation for the 66 RAC) that these "local" rallies (some run by Young Farmers Clubs, some unauthorised) ran across all the local farms as long special stages, with little in common with navigational road rallies of the time.
So JC's motorsport experience didn't start with co-driving on the Scottish Rally (then a tarmac tour nothing like the forest car breaker it became) or driving Ian Scott-Watson's cars in Charterhall races. He was a rally driver who became a racing driver.

Here endeth the Christmas message!

[Tim Harber]

+ never quite joined the well known Italian organisation...

[ivor badger 2]

+ never quite joined the well known Italian organisation...

As the car was made by a tractor manufacturer, JC would be quite at home. After all, he would have learnt to drive on a tractor.

[Pandora]

From the Nostalgia Forum on Autosport.com:

Al

[ivor badger 2]

Jim Clark's early career was entirely typical for the period. Starting off in local club events of all kinds and gradually ending up in his chosen discipline. No starting off in karts at the age of 5 and being groomed to the World championship.

Another point is that Clark would drive anything just to try it, even an ERA between practice sessions at the French GP at Rouen in 1964

[mab01uk]

From latest 'Cooperworld' MCR magazine: