Of course, Clark was ticketed for the Andy Granatelli/Chapman collaboration on the turbine-powered, wedge chassis Lotus 56 in 1968. He’d tested the car in the spring and was enthused by its potential, but lost his life in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim, Germany, just a month before Indy opened for practice.

Still, it surprised some that he’d kept coming back to the Speedway.

“He kept coming back for money,” states McCall. “I don’t think he necessarily liked it, but he liked the money. And Chapman never paid Jimmy proper money. I think he got 7,000 quid [$19,000] for winning the World Championship in 1965, so he could make five or six times that amount by winning Indianapolis.

“It wasn’t that Chapman was mean,” he adds. “The money just wasn’t there. We were always struggling financially.”

Stewart agrees, to a point.

“No question there was a lot more money to be made at Indianapolis than in F1 back then,” he says. “When I got my offer to come drive for John Mecom, Jimmy encouraged me. He said it was quite a challenge, but that I would enjoy it. I did, and I think he did as well.”

When asked if he thought Clark enjoyed racing at Indy, Gurney ponders a moment.

“That’s a hard question to answer,” he says. “He was very proud of having won it and it ended up being a priceless arrow in his quiver. But there’s an element there – and I don’t care if you were A.J., Parnelli or Mario – the morning of the race and you’re looking in the mirror saying to yourself, ‘I wonder if I’m going to be able to do this forever.’ That element existed in those days.”

Clark in contemplative mood in 1966. Naturally shy and reserved, he did become more comfortable with the frenetic Indy 500 vibe with each visit. Motorsport Images

Looking back, the mechanics still have awe in their voices when talking about Clark.

“Jim’s feel was incredible and he was so sensitive to what was going with the chassis,” says McCall. “You didn’t have to give him a good car, just a car that would repeat itself. I worked with 75 racecar drivers and there was nobody like him.”

Sparshott simply states: “We had the right man in the cockpit,” while Fullalove adds: “There was nobody better, ever.”

Asked to rank Clark at Indy, Jones reponds: “He’s right there at the top. With Foyt, Sachs, Ward, Herk and Branson. He was as natural a racer as I’ve ever been around and had all the talent in the world. He didn’t grow up on ovals like me and Foyt, but he sure was a quick learner.”

Stewart still speaks of his old friend with reverence, which is how Clark always approached the Indianapolis 500.

“He treated it like any other race; he went there to win it,” says JYS. “But he had great respect for the track and the American drivers and always thought he was lucky to be there.

“Jim came to Indy in a modest way, with no idea of how to race there and made an immediate impact. And what people loved about him was that, win or lose, he was always the same Jim Clark. There was never any bitterness about 1963 or ’66, just a great deal of satisfaction and humility from winning in ’65.

“He was very special, and his legacy at Indy will be that he’s forever remembered.”

COLIN CHAPMAN’S SEVEN-YEAR ITCH

In the seven years that he competed at the Indianapolis 500, Colin Chapman created cutting-edge cars that changed the face of the race and how American open-wheel teams thought about power-to-weight ratio, pit stops, charging into a corner and going fast on an oval.

All thanks to Daniel Sexton Gurney.

Colin Chapman’s take on a turbine, the wedge-shaped Lotus 56 (RIGHT), with Andy Granatelli’s version during Indy testing, spring 1968. Jim Clark (in car) was excited by the 56’s potential, but didn’t live to race it. IMS archive

Gurney, the only American to ever drive his own creation to a Formula 1 victory (the 1967 Eagle), flew Chapman to the 1962 Indy 500 to get the lay of the land before convincing Ford to build them an engine for 1963.

“I could see at that time that Colin was the raciest designer and the cleverest, and he was willing to create a car with a better chance of winning than the rest of ’em,” says Gurney, who teamed with Jimmy Clark and Lotus at Indy in 1963 and ’64.

From the first Lotus 29 that Clark raced to second place in ’63, followed by his pole-winning Lotus 34 in ’64, came ’65’s stunning Lotus 38 – a full monocoque car with a special off-set layout designed by Len Terry and Chapman.

“He fancied Indianapolis because it was so open and so ripe for the taking,” says Bob Dance, one of Chapman’s best mechanics throughout the ’60s and ’70s.

Following his Indy runaway in ’65, Clark finished second in ’66 with a modified Lotus 38, but struggled mightily with it in ’67. For ’68, he’d have raced the radical, 4-wheel-drive, turbine-powered, wedge Lotus 56 at that year’s “500,” having been enthused by its potential in a test at the Speedway, but was killed in a Formula 2 race just weeks before Opening Day at the Brickyard.

Mario Andretti began May of ’69 in Chapman’s modified Lotus 56, the 64, but totaled the car and suffered flash burns on his face in a big accident in practice.

“Colin was always looking for the advantage, and we had one that month because our cornering speeds were so much greater,” says Andretti, who went on to win that race in a backup Hawk chassis. “But he was designing the car for F1 loads, and the uprights failed because it was so weak. Had it held up, I think it would have been a cakewalk.”

And that was that. Following Mario’s accident, Chapman withdrew his remaining entries, departed IMS and never returned.

“He loved Indy, but he said he’d never come back without his own engine,” recalled former Lotus mechanic Eamon “Chalkie” Fullalove. “And he left before Cosworth developed its Indy engine, which would have been a perfect match.”