When Stewart starred at Indy 500 and Hill 'stole' Clark's victory

Sir Jackie Stewart has been known his whole career for his peripatetic travel schedule, but even for the future three-time Formula 1 champion his travels during 1966 take the cake. There was a staggering array of places and events, from Down Under where he won the Tasman championship to Europe for grand prix racing, mixed in with several trips to the United States for sportscar contests such as the 12 Hours of Sebring, and a new race for Stewart, the Indianapolis 500.

Just a week after winning the Monaco GP for BRM, Stewart was ready for the 50th running of Indy’s self-proclaimed ‘Greatest Spectacle in Racing’. For all of his traveling back and forth to America, Stewart had not been among those F1 drivers participating in what became known as the rear-engined revolution at Indy, which had really got going in earnest when Jim Clark had nearly won the 1963 edition in Colin Chapman’s Lotus-Ford 29. Resistance to the ‘funny cars’ had gone by 1965, the year in which Clark in his elegant-looking green, 4.2-litre Ford DOHC V8-powered Lotus 38 won the 500 at an average speed of 150mph, leading 190 of the 200 laps. Clark’s victory thoroughly vanquished the myth that the front-engined Offy roadsters that had dominated the Speedway were the fastest way around the famous 2.5-mile oval track.