Swedish Formula 1 Driver Ronnie Peterson and my Memory of his Passing.

The world of 1978 was a very different world from the one I live into today. I was young and 17. I had just started work in London and the city was a vibrant hive of activity. The music scene was wonderful with Punk Rock and other great British bands imposing themselves upon the music scene. There were record shops everywhere with all the latest albums up for grabs. The book shops were plentiful with wonderful novels of all genres. The magazine stools were fabulous too with all sorts of delightful topics that lured me. The world seemed like a very glamorous place and London seemed at the centre of it all. I stared out at this world through naive and very impressionable eyes. I drank in all the glamorous aspects of the late 70s decade world and fantasied that all these wonderful things were waiting for me. I thought the whole wide world was an eternity of voguish things and that I might be a young knight of the modern day waiting to take it by storm.  I looked at the world with huge delusions of grandeur and believed the world, in turn, would view me with awe and marvel because out there was something waiting. Something I might be good at. Of course this was all fantasy, but sometimes I imaged I might be a dynamic Rock Star (waiting to be discovered) and live life in the fast lane with beautiful ladies falling head over heels in love with me. Perhaps, a star footballer scoring goals for England or maybe a formula 1 racing driver who would win acclaim in the great arena tweaking the nose of danger. I would die young and be an icon. Perhaps a member of the 27 club. Wow! Ten years of fast lane living – an eternity!

I can see the reader laughing and saying, “Yeah right.”

But I was, as mentioned, incredibly naïve. I rather enjoy my naïve young days when I look back now. What an Earth was going on in my head. I imagined I would climb some mountain of achievement and have millions of onlookers stroke my adolescent conviction of vanity. There were celebrities everywhere and none more so then in the Formula 1 racing world. Nikki Lauda, James Hunt, Mario Andretti where all big at the time. Maybe, I would like to be a Formula 1 racing driver. I began to buy the motor racing magazines and was blown away by the sleek look of the Lotus team’s John Player sponsored black racing car. They had Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson driving for them. I thought the cars looked great and often envied the life style these daredevils might live. I knew James Hunt had a great swashbuckling reputation and he had one a championship back in 1976. Nikki Lauda bore the scars of injury, but had also taken championship titles. Now in 1978 it seemed to be Mario Andretti that was amassing points with his team mate Ronnie Peterson. It was the Lotus car designs turn.

I had got a job as a humble coding clerk in an American Re-insurance company called CNA-RE based in Fenchurch Street in Fountain House. It was the claims department and I spent my time writing policy numbers, premium amounts received and claim payments paid out. It was before computers and there was no excel programs or computers back then. I was writing these from policy cards kept in a large filing cabinet on wheels. All day long I pulled out claims polices from this trolley and copied the various transaction numbers and amounts into a folder. Why? I haven’t the foggiest idea. It seemed like an incredible waste of time because everything I was writing down was on other files here there and everywhere.

CAN-RE dealt with Lloyd’s insurance brokers who went about the city E.C.3 area – predominantly Fenchurch Street, Leadenhall Street, St Mary Axe etc. There were hundreds of these small Re-insurance offices for the brokers to sell their insurance premiums to. The risks were so great that the insurance was broken down into small sections and 5% or 10% would be sold to various different Re-insurance companies. These insurance risks were big. Like airlines, shipping industries or other multi-commercial interests. Interests so big that one insurance company might not be able to take on a big risk alone. Because a claim for a huge cargo ship or jumbo jet could work out to be multi millions.

For a single person life insurance could be bought against an ordinary insurance company, but a single Formula 1 racing car driver was Re-insured due to the high level of risk involved.

In 1978 the Lotus team racing Driver Ronnie Peterson got killed during the Italian Grand Prix. He was Mario Andretti’s team mate in the Lotus racing team – the black JPS cars I thought looked great and sleek, the racing driver I envied beyond all things. He was a young man living this life I imagined as glamorous, but his sudden death shocked me. I remember seeing Nikki Lauda in TV. interviews after his death defying accident and the scars he had to his face. I believed that the turning point had been reached. Now Ronnie Peterson had also been killed in this promising Lotus team.

It made me dwell on things a little and was a short shock about the less sensational aspect of racing from the driver’s point of view. Maybe I was happier being a spectator on this one. Perhaps there is always a price to pay for such dearing escapades? The feelings resurfaced a few weeks later when I was writing out the claims transactions and pulled out a Re-insurance claims card to copy details from. 

CAN-RE had a small percentage of Ronnie Peterson’s claim. It said he had been killed in the Italian Grand Prix and I realised he was actually re-insured. I can’t remember my much company’s actual risk percentage, but it was probably between 5% and 10%. I can’t remember the exact figure in US dollars but it was multiple thousands of. At such a small percentage I began to wonder what the overall claim would have been once the Lloyd's claims brokers had done the rounds upon all the Re-insurance companies taking these multiple thousands here and there. It had to be staggering, I know it was, but I remember thinking it was no good to poor Ronnie Peterson – the talented Swedish Formula 1 racing driver who died aged 34. There is a statue of him in Orebro, Sweden and among his funeral pole bearers was Ken Tyrell, Colin Chapman, James Hunt, Nikki Lauda and Jody Scheckter. I remember thinking it was a tragic thing at the time and for me; perhaps a slice of life after the glitter is brushed away.

Fatal Formula 1 championship crashes - Road Warriors that Perished Trying.

Many road warriors perished trying to win the most ultimate of prestige in Formula 1. It is in all human nature to try and attain good things. We test ourselves in many fields of endeavour. It could be medicine or exploration - the adventures are endless. Many men can't help but pursue the idea of speed where they can push to the limit and briefly reach the zone - a world where one is running parallel with death. What makes us do it? What excites us?

I can see the attraction but lack the courage of such conviction. Perhaps I'm right to? However, I can't help admiring the Formula 1 racing or the Isle of Man TT because it is so dangerous.

It must be intoxicating once you've done such things. What motivates these men when the more they dice with death, the greater the risk of meeting it became so?

Jim Clark Racing Driver (from the perspective of a seven year old kid)

From the mind of a seven year old boy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v62StJvxLu8

My only memory of Jim Clark, as a young seven year old, was from his prestigious reputation. I did not know what F1 racing meant, but I knew what racing cars looked liked. Racing cars were different from ordinary cars. Even though ordinary cars did race if they had stripes, and numbers painted on them, and were put on racing tracks or in fields. They still were not proper racing cars though.

Real racing cars were different and they went faster and you only saw them on television because they did not drive on streets. I also had hundreds of toy cars and knew what racing cars looked like. I knew the name Jim Clark because he raced such cars. The UK in the 1960s decade was full of names in various and exciting iconic interests. Interests that came to us from pop stars, film stars, football stars, comics of great British war heroes - we were fed on a diet of great heroes.

In school, or somewhere, I knew of Jim Clark. He drove racing cars and won trophies of great prestige because he was a champion racing car driver. I had no idea what he looked like. But when we kids played motor racing cars in the school playground or out on the streets, everyone argued over who was Jim Clark.

"I'm Jim Clark."

"No, I'm Jim Clark."

Needless to say the toughest kid in the group was usually Jim Clark.

It was in the summer of 1968 when I went on holiday with my cousins, who were a little older then me. We were playing in the garden of a guest house, where we were staying, and decided to play racing cars around this huge boat that was being made in the garden. I'm not sure if it was in Margate, Ramsgate or Broadstairs because we always seemed to go to one of these places every year. This boat looked like a miniature ark and someone was in the process of building it. While we were at the guest house; whoever was trying to construct the boat, must have left the project, because we never saw anyone working on the partly completed boat. All the wood was new and I remembered wondering how they would get such a big boat off of its stands and to the sea.

We were running around this partly constructed boat playing and laughing. Then decided we were racing cars, and around the boat was the racing track.

"I'm Jim Clark," I shouted enthusiastically. My elder cousins were very tolerant and not like the kids in the playground and in the street. I had a good chance of being indulged and getting my way.

"You can't," replied my cousin Danny. "Jim Clark is dead."

"No he's not - he's a racing car driver."

He went on to tell me that Jim Clark was killed in a racing car crash, in a real racing car race, only a short time ago. I was stunned and shocked. Jim Clark was dead and I never even knew it, or what he looked like.

As years rolled by and other F1 names came and went from the sport, I learnt more of Jim Clark through watching interviews with Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill. He was a very special champion that was liked and respected in the F1 sport across the world.

Below is a link to a documentary of Jim Clark that is on YouTube. It's a very moving documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v62StJvxLu8

Jim Clark interview.

Jim Clark won the Formula One Championship on two occasions. 1963 and 1965. He was killed during a minor none F1 race in Germany 1968. Had he lived beyond his 32 years, I believe he would have undoubtedly gone on to win at least one other championship.