Sunday Mirror Trophy - Goodwood April 19 1965

Goodwood on Easter Monday was notable for the first racing appearance of the four ­valve-per-cylinder Climax V8, fitted in Jim Clark's Lotus. Apart from that, there was really nothing new in Formula I on the circuit just the same mixture that we saw in 1964. The new Climax V8 was good, no doubt about it. From what 1 saw of Jimmy, the engine was quick everywhere, both out of the chicane and down the straight. It is very pleasing indeed that we have an improvement like this for the coming season, and we are looking forward to having one of the new units for one of our cars in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Dan Gurney was in tremendous form at Goodwood, and it was encouraging to see him driving so well at the start of the European season. He had trouble in practice, with the engine running too weak. There was insufficient adjustment to be able to get through the maximum torque range from 8,000 to 8,500 rpm, and it was impossible to overcome this problem during the day of practice, because it is quite a job getting to the injection pump. However, we were able to carry out the work during the week-end, replacing the injection cam for a slightly richer one. Dan's car went very well in the race until the timing chain started to disintegrate. The little pieces of hardened roller out of the chain destroyed the pistons and liners sufficient for the engine to start drinking oil. On the last few laps Dan found that the oil pressure was dropping, and fortunately spotted it in time to switch off and so prevent destroying the engine completely. If he had gone on then we would undoubtedly have had a very big bill.

My car went quite well. I didn't have the fastest engine by any means, and I was also handicapped with an injury to my left thumb, which I had tried to cut off two nights before. On the Saturday evening I was working to fit a modified suspension on my car, with new front wishbones and joints. I was reaming a bigger hole in one of the front uprights to take the bigger joint when the reamer slipped and gashed my hand. The reamer was very sharp, and laid the flesh right open to the bone. I had to go to the hospital, where four stitches were put in it. Luckily it wasn't my gearchange hand, but it was very painful trying to drive in the race with all the vibration from the steering wheel. People told me I was rather ragged that day, and frankly I'm not surprised.