JIM & JACKIE

JIM CLARK MUSEUM OPENED IN THE SCOTTISH BORDERS BY SIR JACKIE STEWART

- SIR JACKIE STEWART

JIM CLARK AND SIR JACKIE STEWART ARE F1 RACING LEGENDS, they will always remain Scottish heroes and both had very strong associations with Jaguar in their early careers. Sir Jackie was twice linked with the marque! Jim drove for the Jaguar-based team Border Reivers and both were regulars with Ecurie Ecosse.

They were rivals, and extremely good friends, but it was Jim's unexpected death in a minor F2 race which was the impetus for Jackie to dedicate himself to establishing the racing safety demanded and expected today. I would have been a much more popular World Champion if I had always said what people wanted to hear. I might have been dead, but definitely more popular, he said. Surprisingly, they came from vastly different upbringings - Jim was the proverbial 'Laird of the Manor' and Jackie the dyslexic apprentice motor mechanic.

Almost since the time of his cruel death early in 1968, having won his final two career races in Australia, the Jim Clark Room was established in his principal Border home town, Duns. We knew it well, but the low-key establishment, which displayed his 1965 Indy 500 winner's ring, Australian Grand Prix trophy and one of his three Tasman Cups, has expanded, been refurbished and re-opened, appropriately, by Sir Jackie Stewart OBE. Our UK correspondents Rob Jenner and Letitia Mace were among a crowd of privileged guests invited to preview the newly presented museum and witness the opening.

The original Border Reivers team D-Type TKF9 (XKD517), driven by Jim in 1958, was brought back to Scotland for the opening of the museum and the Bo’ness Revival.

The Border Reivers racing team was set up by Jock McBain and his friends in Chirnside in the early 1950s. The Reivers existed at least a year before the more famous Ecurie Ecosse team.