1965 Indianapolis 500 Film

[@MarkGrudt]

Living in the Detroit area, and just minutes from the museum in Dearborn it's awesome to be able to see these cars first hand. The Lotus-Ford is one of the most beautiful cars at the museum

[@wilburshaw9330]

This was my first 500. My buddy & I walked over from our houses. We were 11 years old. I haven’t missed one since. 2020, I was across the track on 16th street watching on the big screen. Lol

[@camerongreenwoodcrampakacgc.]

1965. My favourite Indy 500 of all time apart from many others. Won by Jim Clark, the greatest driver who ever lived apart from Ayrton Senna.

[@Sargebri]

I often wonder what would have happened if Clark not died. He might have even tried competing in NASCAR. It would have been fun seeing him swapping paint with Petty and Yarborough.

[@camerongreenwoodcrampakacgc.]

@Sargebri Yeah. Me too. Jim Clark is the greatest driver who ever lived apart from Ayrton Senna and of course my favourite drivers of all time too.

[@michaelnelson3752]

@@camerongreenwoodcrampakacgc. both Senna and Fangio said Clark was the greatest driver of all time. Senna a visitor to the Clark Museum.

[@camerongreenwoodcrampakacgc.]

@michaelnelson3752 Yes they did.

[@Caroni100]

"I don´t believe in bad luck. I do believe in something done wrong" Jim Clark (1936-1968) British Formula 1 driver. World Champion in 1963 and 1965. Greetings from Venezuela!

[@mxmissile4588]

Hello, don't forget the Woods Bros and their 18 sec pit stops. Leanord Wood as usual figured something out about the configuration of the fuel tanks for an 18 sec stop. EPIC

[@bloqk16]

Something I found out about Mario Andretti's early years of his competitiveness at Indy and on the USAC Champ car circuit in the 1960s: A couple of years ago Vintage Motorsport magazine had a pictorial of Andretti's Brawner/Hawk race car; where it was revealed that the shape of the body had a slight curvature to it as an inverted wing, providing (unbeknownst to the car builder) ground effect downforce; which gave Andretti's car a slight advantage over the other Champ cars of that era.

[@cjs83172]

There was a rule back then that stated that any aerodynamic device or addition had to be an integral part of the body, which that would certainly qualify as. It wouldn't be until McLaren and a few other teams found a way to mold a wing into the body of the car in 1971 that the rules makers decided to allow bolt-on wings and other aerodynamic devices.

[@affandi99]

Jim Clark is the first ever driver to win the Indy 500, with rear engine car

[@bloqk16]

Say! I recognize the narrator's voice, Sid Collins, deservedly labeled the voice of the 500 for many years on radio.

[@cjs83172]

Yep. He was the "Voice of the 500" from the early 1950s until he committed suicide shortly after learning that he had ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease in late-April of 1977, and thus would have been unable to do the 1977 Indianapolis 500. And so he decided to take his own life on May 2, 1977 instead of suffering through having Lou Gehrig's Disease, which would have inevitably taken his life. Collins narrated the film for this race and the one from '66.

[@matthewbivens697]

Jim Clark was one of the best one-time winners in 500 history!

[@cjs83172]

As great as he ran there, he could easily have been a 3-time winner, and he only competed in the race five times (1963-'67), having won the race once, finished second twice, sat on the pole once, and his 190 laps led in 1965 is tied for the third-most ever by a winner in race history (Al Unser would lead 190 laps in his first Indy win five years later), a total exceeded only by Billy Arnold (198 laps led in 1930) and Bill Vukovich (195 laps led in his first of two consecutive Indy wins).

[@marktemsic7457]

Great to see and hear Brock Yates again... Thanks..✌🏼.

[@danilonogueira648]

Jim Clark: gênio do automobilismo mundial !! Abriu mão de disputar o GP de Mônaco de fórmula 1 para correr as 500 milhas de Indianápolis. Venceu a corrida e foi campeão mundial de F1, com folga, no mesmo ano (1965).

[@twillis449]

I feel sure that if Jim Clark hadn't been killed in 1968 and had continued to race and build up his resume, he would certainly be considered the greatest race driver of all time. As it is I have to give that crown to Mario - he's won in just about any vehicle that has 4 wheels.

[@cjs83172]

In fact, it's entirely possible he was thinking about running more NASCAR races if he wanted to extend his career beyond F1, because late in 1967, he ran his one and only NASCAR race at Rockingham, NC in the fall of 1967 for Holman-Moody, the same organization for which Mario won that year's Daytona 500. He was always a very popular driver in the U.S., given how the fans immediately took to him in at Indy in 1963, by which time, he'd already won the U.S. Grand Prix, so I think it was entirely possible that he was intending to race more in the U.S., had he not been killed in that F2 race in Hockenheim, Germany. In fact, he was going to run one of Andy Granatelli's turbine cars (which were co-entered by Colin Chapman) in the 1968 Indianapolis 500, having run for Granatelli at Indy in both 1966 and '67, before he was killed in Germany. And given that Granatelli's STP corporation would become a major NASCAR sponsor as soon as 1970, it could have been reasonable to reason Granatelli running him in some NASCAR races, but we'll never know what would have happened. And had Clark not been killed and ultimately decided to race in the U.S. on the USAC circuit, it's also possible that he could have been teamed with Andretti with Granatelli's team.

[@sam21462]

Oh I think that anyone who knows racing and its history has Jim near or at the top of the list. When you listen to his contemporaries talk about him they generally nod only to Fangio as being better than Clark.

[@anthonygreen7978]

If you compare Jim Clark to a NFL running back he'll be Jim Brown and Colin Champman for NFL coaches be Vince Lombardi. The Lotus Indy Car the Packers of the 60s!

[@markdinkel-uh2je]

Need to run 500 on Saturday again.

[@jameswilson313]

The Wood brothers racing team proved themselves on this day.

[@cjs83172]

I slightly disagree. They did that two years earlier when their pit crew and their setup allowed Tiny Lund to win the 1963 Daytona 500 without a single tire change, and do so with one less pit stop than their chief competition had to make. And while Leonard Wood's idea to help fuel flow faster into the tank did made things much easier in the pits, the Lotus team's setup was also a big part of the victory, as they never changed a single tire on either of their two pit stops. And once A.J. Foyt fell out due to gearbox troubles (and even he was a lap behind Clark when he fell out), all Jim Clark had to do is finish the race to win.

[@jameswilson313]

@@cjs83172 I agree 100% with everything you said but my only point was that at that time you had a pit crew who were looked at as a bunch of hicks entering someone else's territory. They actually cut the pit time at indy by as much as 65% which is a testament to the ingenuity of the wood brothers which deserves much respect.

[@cjs83172]

@@jameswilson313 And they certainly cleaned the pit stops up on the cars of Clark and Indy rookie Bobby Johns. The pits stops made by Dan Gurney, who was Clark's teammate in the 1964 race, were sloppy, to say the least (Clark never got to make one in that race himself due to the collapsed suspension caused by a tire failure on the left rear).

[@stewartwalter407]

@@cjs83172 the fuel rig was actually designed by Len Terry who was the designer of the car. He added a breather pipe which allowed the fuel to flow faster. As it was gravity feed and the tank was full at the start, that explains why the first stop was faster than the second. Jim Smith who was Clark’s mechanic noticed that the lugs on the fuel lines weren’t going on smoothly so he conferred with the Woods Bros and together they filed the lugs so they could virtually throw them on and off.

[@michaelbragg6903]

They were impressed with Jim Clark all month.

[@NPA1001]

Ayrton Senna said he thought Jim Clark was the greatest driver of them all.

[@cjs83172]

And even though his career overlapped with Clark's and he ended up surpassing Clark's marks in F1 racing (mainly surpassing him in wins and championships), Jackie Stewart had the same opinion, at least among F1 drivers. And on the pace lap of the 1968 Indianapolis 500 on the IMS radio broadcast, Sid Collins, who narrated this film of the 1965 race, stated that, among international racers, Clark had "made the greatest record of them all", referring to his overall accomplishments in the sport. I can almost guarantee this. No driver will ever win both the Indianapolis 500 AND the F1 championship in the same year again, as Clark did in 1965.

[@skyhigh335]

first indy 500 for Mario Andretti, Al Unser Sr. & Gordon Johncock

[@cjs83172]

+33kalam As well as for Joe Leonard, who won back-to-back USAC IndyCar titles in 1971 and '72. The 1965 crop of Indianapolis 500 rookies is widely considered the greatest in modern annals.

[@markdinkel-uh2je]

George Bignotti was a genius.

[@smedleybutler8787]

After watching most of these I've come to the conclusion that the announcers love Mario Andretti

[@BobGeogeo]

AJ had a 2nd hand 1964 Lotus that looks like it had a similar rear suspension failure as Clark's the year before. Seems like someone should have reinforced the rear. To my eyes Chapman's extreme quest for lightness should have been a secondary goal for Indy.

[@cjs83172]

During the IMS Radio broadcast of the 1964 Indianapolis 500, it was mentioned that one of the difference between the Lotus cars and the rear engine cars that A.J. Watson designed and built for that race was that, with more than a decade's worth of experience of running the Indianapolis 500, and building five winning cars from 1955-'62, Watson knew how to build a car strong enough to last 500 miles, and none of his cars suffered the kind of failures the Lotus cars suffered in the 1964 race, and neither did the Liquid MG team suffer any such failures. Meanwhile, the Lotus cars of Clark and Bobby Marshman (for a rival team) were the fastest, but one suffered a dropped oil plug from running on the apron and Clark's car suffered a collapsed suspension after blowing a rear tire. The second Lotus team car, driven by Dan Gurney, was withdrawn after a couple of botched pit stops (hence the Wood Brothers' appearance in 1965) after his team feared that Gurney's car would suffer the same fate as Clark's car did.

[@paulonatanaeldossantossana3909]

O primeiro piloto a ser campeão mundial de fórmula 1 e vencedor das 500 milhas de Indianapolis Depois veio o Graham Hill Mario Andretti Emerson Fittipaldi E Jacques Villeneuve

[@markdinkel-uh2je]

Anyone remember the roof over s chute stands?

[@OnePost909]

What's the deal with the goof-ball cool-guy shades?

[@cjs83172]

+Jake Larsen That Brock Yates was wearing? I don't know. Maybe he was having trouble with glare in his eyes and his sunglasses were helping him in that regard. Remember that those segments were done nearly 20 years ago, so he might have had been having trouble with his eyes back then.