My all time hero, the Greatest of the Greats,
Jim Clark.!
When we lost Jimmy in April 68 I was totally
devastated & as a 10yr
old kid it took me years to even talk about it.
In all the time since, I've seen some absolutely great race car drivers, but no better driver than Jim Clark. The G.O.A.T.

Grew up in Indy in the 60's, All these Drivers were my heros!  Pacers & the ABA were just starting off

I remember watching this race on the ABC-TV (US) Wide World of Sports on late Saturday afternoon back then.
This telecast of this race was delayed by six days, as this race ran on the previous Sunday and televised on the following Saturday.  Live auto races were still in its infancy at that time.
But even with the delayed televising of this race, the scant info available back then was only with radio, TV, and print; with motorsports being on the low-rung of sports reporting in newspapers and TV/radio news sports segments; so chances were high, such as with me, of being clueless who won the race the previous Sunday.  So for me, this race was akin to viewing it live.
It was extremely gratifying to see Dan Gurney win this race; as while always a top-notch competitor, the equipment would not reliably hold up to the strenuous demands he placed on them; so he had a high drop-out rate in the early to mid-years of his racing career.
It was televised races such as this one that got me hooked on motorports until the mid-1970s.

I WAS THERE!  This race is one of my best childhood memories. I remember the Art Scholl's airshow too.  I was just eleven years old. Our family sat high on turn 6 where one could view down the S's.  Seeing Dan Gurney come from far behind running all put to win on the last lap was a thrill I became his fan forever.  What a shame Riverside Raceway is no more l.

What a race What a year for Dan

What a field of great drivers.  I love this era of racing, except for the danger of course.

I love this era of racing. The danger makes it heroic, not the boring bumper cars like we have today. Dan Gurney for President...

racing almost in December today there done in early september, the spirit has gone out of racing!

Funny, my Dad and I took his new Lincoln to the dealership in Newport Beach for an oil change in 1959, when the Technician had completed the service, he drove it up to where my Dad and I were waiting with the Service Manager.  He got out of the car and handed the keys to my Dad; the Service Manager said “this is Roger Ward, he won the Indy 500 this year.”  What’s even funnier, is that in 1968, I would start working for Dan Gurney at All American Racers, Inc.

Happy to see this race on YT and not only the opening laps of this race

Racing God JIM CLARK - Unmatched Maestro. By far the Greatest Driver Ever - No doubt. He is and was "The Best of the Best" (Fangio, Senna, Prost, AJ Foyt, Colin Chapman and countless others about Clark). No other driver in history until today was so superior as Clark - No other driver has so much "Grand Slam" ( 8 ! ) - Pole/Win/Fastest Lap/Leading every lap of the race - like him. And all that from just 72 GP starts... !
This man is the Olymp of driving - the Michelangelo of racing - a dynamic art at the highest level. So smooth, so precise, so fast....simply out of this world. Particularly noteworthy: According to the Lotus mechanics, Clark had virtually no brake and tire wear - and this in conjunction with his extraterrestrial speed.

Only mechanical unreliability prevented three additional world championships in 1962, 1964 and 1967. And although Clark is legendary for his incomparably gentle driving style, it is not for nothing that he was the only driver to drive the fragile BRM H16 engine in the Lotus 43 to his only GP victory.
One, who won in Spa by 5 minutes (!) in monsoon rain with only one hand at the wheel (!) due to gearbox trouble...One, who takes back a complete lap (!) in Monza and back into the lead... One, who took pole on the original 22,8 km Nürburgring track by 9 (!) seconds and more....One who won Indy by 2 whole laps. (!)

Perhaps his greatest, but unrewarded, race however, was the 1000 km race on the old, 22.8 km long Nürburgring Nordschleife on May 27, 1962, in the rain. The first 11 laps of this race are considered by many to be unparalleled in Nürburgring history. Clark, in the small Lotus 23 with a 95 hp Ford engine, competed against the huge sports car competition from Ferrari and others with over 300 hp, and fielded with world-class drivers such as Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, and Willi Mairesse. Clark started seventh in the underpowered car. After the first lap, he already had a 25-second lead, and after the sixth lap, an incredible 1 minute and 45 seconds... To this day, Nürburgring experts speak of this driving demonstration from another galaxy.

In 1965 he had the most succesful year of any driver in the history of the sport: He won the F1 World Championship, the Tasman Series with F1 cars, the Indy 500, the British and French F2 Championship, the British Touring car Championship, totally over 50 (!) victories in one season !!!! For eternity and by lightyears unmatched in the sport. That`s just some examples of his mesmeric unique genius...

The olds only racing on tv was wide world of sports and you only saw a small part between ice dancing and swimming  but the guys calling the race were great names

Art Scholl (the pilot who did that spectacular demonstration run during the pre-race), sadly died in a crash during the production of Top Gun in 1985.

I was there, 14 years old

Roger Ward was right about this being the beginning of a new era.  It was the beginning of the end of American OW racing as a major player in the sport.  Within a decade, we had the USAC - CART split and soon after, and since, almost every well-funded seat in OW Champ car has gone to F1 wannabes or has-beens, with most American talent going to NASCAR where sponsorship $ are plentiful enough that owners can afford to hire based on ability and potential.

Awesome Drivers and Awesome looking cars..🎉❤🎉

Great race and so much talent. Love that Clark ride in the Rollie Vollstedt ride....a $23,000 dollar engine...interesting comment...now it would be a 200k engine. A great race for the sprint car driver McCluskey giving up one of his best rides and AJ said he owed the championship to him...... These guys used to do it all and cared more for the sport than themselves

I've been looking for this ever since it was taken down a couple of years ago. Thanks!

I have never gotren over that Riverside International Raceway is gone.

Clark and Andretti had deep respect for each other.