Jackie Stewart

1939-

Scottish race car driver

The name Jackie Stewart is synonymous in America with auto racing. The series he became a legend of, Formula One (F1), however, is virtually unknown in the States. Arguably the most watched sport internationally, F1 is the most advanced auto racing series in the world. From 1964-73, The "Wee Scot" established a race-win record in his trademark tartan helmet that remained unbroken in F1 for fourteen years. His driving style has been characterized as smooth, precise, persistent, consistent, and remarkably quick. Off the track, he is known to be good natured and humorous. Beyond his illustrious career, Stewart's greatest contribution to motorsports may be his relentless campaign for track and driver safety after surviving a crash in 1966. He became a household

name in the 1970s and 1980s as a commentator for ABC's Wide World of Sports, and maintained a partnership for Ford Motor Company for three decades. The F1 squad he launched with his son became Jaguar Racing.

Put Down Gun To Get Behind Wheel

Stewart was born June 11, 1939 in Dumbartonshire, Scotland. He began competitive shooting at age fourteen, and discovered something he was very good at. After frustrating experiences in school, he quit at age fifteen to work at Dumbuck's, his family's garage, and apprentice as a mechanic. It was not until later that he was diagnosed with dyslexia, which explained his difficulties with learning. Stewart's brother Jimmy was an accomplished semi-professional driver for the Scottish Ecurie Ecosse team by the time Stewart first drove an old race car on the snowy streets of Dumbartonshire. When Jimmy crashed soon after, the younger Stewart was warned away from motorsports, and encouraged to pursue his marksmanship talents.

The young Scot excelled in shooting, winning British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and English trap shooting championships between 1959-62. He began to find his way back to racecar driving against his parents' wishes after failing to make the 1960 British Olympic shooting team. He was twenty-three years old—a late bloomer in auto racing—when he drove his first race at the Scottish airfield circuit Charterhall in 1962. He also married his wife Helen that year. By 1963 Stewart was driving for his brother's old team, Ecurie Ecosse, and was noticed by race team manager Ken Tyrell. Stewart out drove Bruce McLaren, already an experienced F1 driver, in a test for Tyrell. McLaren would later head the formidable McLaren racing team. Tyrell's offer to let Stewart drive for him in the British Formula Three series in 1964, and Stewart's subsequent domination of the series, pushed the young driver into the spotlight as an F1 hopeful.

Stewart made a calculated decision about his 1965 start in F1 racing. He turned down an offer from the legendary Team Lotus to drive alongside fellow Scot Jim Clark in lieu of a more competitive spot alongside Graham Hill on the BRM team. Clark's firm position as Lotus' number-one driver would have placed Stewart chronically in his shadow. At BRM, the hungry young driver would be able to shine. At the time of his death in 1968, Clark was the winningest F1 driver in history, with twenty-five career wins. Though he drove for BRM in 1965, Stewart made his F1 debut in a Lotus car. He guest drove the Lotus, qualifying in pole position in the nontitle Rand Grand Prix in South Africa in December 1964.

Survived Near-Fatal Crash A Champion

Stewart placed in the top six spots, earning championship points in his first six Grand Prix races. He qualified in pole position for a nonchampionship race at Goodwood, and beat World Champion John Surtees into second place in the International Silverstone Trophy race. He beat teammate Graham Hill to the finish line at the 1965 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. He finished the season third overall for the World Championship, an amazing finish for a rookie driver. The 1966 season started promisingly with a win for Stewart at Monaco, but technical problems kept him out of the competition for the remainder of the season, and he finished sixth in the World Championship. He almost won the Indianapolis 500 that year, his first, but mechanical failure took him out of the race with only eight laps to go.

When he entered F1, the sport was "horrendously dangerous," he is quoted as saying in Forbes. "There were no seat belts worn, the medical care was pathetic, and there was no firefighting equipment to speak of." Stewart witnessed the deaths of many friends and rivals during his racing career, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, and Francois Cevert among them. Like all F1 drivers of the time, Stewart was driving without a seatbelt when he crashed during the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps in 1966. He ran off the track while driving 165 mph in heavy rain, and proceeded to crash into a telephone pole and a shed before driving into a farmer's outbuilding. A ruptured fuel tank filled the cockpit with fuel, and could have ignited at the tiniest spark with Stewart trapped inside. He was extracted from what could easily have been a fatal crash, having suffered broken ribs and shoulder and rib injuries.

Chronology

Related Biography: Driver Jim Clark

Fellow Scot Jim Clark was the greatest racing driver on the track when Jackie Stewart entered F1. Competition between the legend and the rookie promised to develop into a rich rivalry, but Clark died before Stewart had fully hit his stride. Born March 4, 1936 in Kilmany, Scotland, Clark, like Stewart, went into racing against his parents' wishes. He proved his mettle at first in friends' cars, but began to attract attention in the Jaguar D Type he drove for the Border Reivers team. After plans for an Aston Martin Grand Prix team collapsed, he signed with Lotus to drive in the Formula Two and Formula Junior series. His relationship with the manufacturer carried him into F1 with the team, which was running the fastest cars, though not always the most mechanically reliable. He first raced F1 in 1960, and was a leading contender until his death. He won the World Championship in 1963, and was challenged by newcomer Stewart for the 1965 title, which he also took home. Reserved and gentlemanly, Clark preferred his family and farm in Scotland to the cosmopolitan life of an F1 driver. He was just beginning to come into his own in the spotlight when he died. Still considered by many the greatest racing driver in history, Clark was killed April 7, 1968 in a crash at Hockenheim.

Stewart emerged from the experience a lifelong champion of safety reform who instituted countless changes in auto racing safety regulations. He was able to return to the driver's seat after a few weeks, and never again drove without a seatbelt, full-faced helmet, and fireproof racing suit. BRM head Louis Stanley backed Stewart's safety campaign to improve track and car standards and medical facilities. Track improvements in the name of safety that were unpopular with circuit owners have now become

the norm. "If I have any legacy to leave the sport I hope it will be seen to be in an area of safety," Stewart is quoted as saying on the Grand Prix Hall of Fame Web site, "because when I arrived in Grand Prix racing, socalled precautions and safety measures were diabolical."

Went Out On Top

After a lackluster 1967 season with BRM, Stewart had outgrown the fading team, and signed on to drive once again for Ken Tyrell, who was heading up a new F1 team. The German Grand Prix at Nurburgring may be Stewart's greatest race, according to Formula One Art & Genius online. He drove the fourteen-mile, 187-corner track in torrential rain and with a broken wrist, and beat Graham Hill to the finish line. "I can't remember doing one more balls-out lap of the 'Ring than I needed to," he is quoted as saying online at Formula One Art & Genius. "It gave you amazing satisfaction, but anyone who says he loved it is either a liar or wasn't going fast enough." Stewart lost the World Championship to Hill that year, coming in second, but clinched his first World Championship title in Tyrell's Matra-Ford in 1969. He qualified at the front of the pack often during the 1970 season, but did not regain the World Championship until 1971. Stomach ulcers kept him off the track for many races of the 1972 season, but returned in 1973 to drive another World Championship season. Unknown to his fans, Stewart had decided early in the season that the year would be his last.

Just thirty-four years old, Stewart announced his retirement in 1973, after winning his third Grand Prix title. "The key in life," Stewart told Sports Illustrated in 2002, "is deciding when to go into something and when to get out of it." He broke Jim Clark's record with twenty-seven career Grands Prix out of 99 entered, a record that remained until Alain Prost broke it in 1987. He was named both Sports Illustrated 's Sportsman of the Year, and Wide World of Sport's Athlete of the Year, an honor he shared that year with football player O.J. Simpson . Stewart, who has admitted that he "got big-headed" during this time, according to ABC Sports online, is also quick to point out, humorously, that the race horse Secretariat was chosen third for the ABC honor. Secretariat apparently was not in contention for the World, British, and Scottish Sportsman of the Year awards, which Stewart also won in 1973. Stewart had managed to become a legendary racing driver while remaining alive and in one piece, which is in itself an accomplishment.

Retirement Was A Relative Term

He had managed to beat the odds in auto racing and had come out on top, but Stewart also was "just plain bored, burned out, restless," Duncan Christy wrote in Forbes. "Where was I going?" he recalled asking himself. "What else was there to do? It was the same old ground. I could have stayed on as a racing car driver. I mean, Mario [Andretti] is the same age as I am. A.J. Foyt is a lot older. But I would never have developed; I would never have expanded as an individual."

Retirement meant nothing to Stewart; it kept him out of the cockpit but, career-wise, he remained very much in the driver's seat. He has worked as an advisor and ambassador for several international companies, including Ford and Goodyear Tire. "I knew it would be a good way to make money without the capital investment and risk necessary when you go into business yourself." He signed a five-year contract as an engineering consultant for Ford Motor Company, working with Ford engineers to improve handling. "American cars used to be like pregnant elephants," he told U.S. News & World Report, "Now, at least, Fords have become lean and clean in their response."

Stewart also joined ABC's Wide World of Sports as a commentator, which made him a household name in the 1970s and 1980s. "Wide World of Sports had a considerable impact on my life in general," Stewart is quoted as saying at ABC Sports online. "As a race driver it projected me in a way in the United States of America. I would otherwise never have been able to be put in the minds of sports fans in America. It helped my commercial life, my business life, and it helped my racing life. It was a good thing for me to have done." He was voted Wide World of Sports' Personality of the Year in 1973, which he was particularly honored by. "There's not country in the world that could give your sports people … more focus or more illumination," Stewart told ABC Sports online. In "such a galaxy" of American sports personalities, it was a "big thing" to be non-American and win the award. Stewart also has admitted that his title, "winningest driver in the history of Grand Prix," was like currency in his many lucrative business deals.

Stewart moved his family to Switzerland to avoid strict British tax laws early in his racing career, and he has long been known for his globetrotting lifestyle. Stewart travels upwards of 400,000 miles a year on the Concorde or in his private jet. Though his friend Prince Charles did not knight him until 2001, Sir Stewart has always kept company with royalty and celebrities, who adore him. He has rubbed elbows with Sean Connery, Prince Edward, Steven Spielberg, and Jordan's King Hussein, to name a few. Beatle George Harrison taught his sons to play guitar. Helen Stewart is godmother to Princess Anne's daughter Zara.

Awards and Accomplishments

Where Is He Now?

Stewart founded a shooting school at Scotland's prestigious Gleneagle Hotel in the early 1980s. Nearly thirty years after joining forces with Ford, he signed on in February 2002 for another three years in research and development with the American auto company. He has served since 1995 as president of the Scottish Dyslexia Trust. He has also been on the boards of and a spokesman for Moet & Chandon champagne and Rolex watches. Stewart's wife Helen was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 just eighteen months after their son Paul was told he had colon cancer, which went into remission. "For years she stood waiting to see if I would survive a race; now it's me waiting," Stewart is quoted as saying by Sports Illustrated in 2002. "The past two years are probably the toughest thing I've had to deal with in my life." Stewart's younger son Mark, who runs a television production company, is making a four-part documentary of his father's life called The Flying Scot.

All in all, Stewart's long-held record earns him status in motor-racing history, but his impact on the sport is much greater than statistics can show. Every driver on the track has Stewart to thank for the safety mandates he championed that have saved many lives. Because of his American media exposure, he is surely the most-known F1 driver in the States. But his reputation as a class-act sportsman and businessman are the result of a lifetime of integrity and good humor both on and off the track.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Henry, Alan. Grand Prix Champions: From Jackie Stewart to Michael Schumacher. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1995.

Periodicals

Bechtel, Mark. "Catching up with … Jackie Stewart, Auto racer September 6, 1971." Sports Illustrated (February 25, 2002): 19.

Bronson, Gail. "As stars hawk their hidden talents—some have more than a famous face and name to sell." U.S. News & World Report (February 17, 1986): 44.

Christy, Duncan. "Jackie Stewart aims to please." Forbes (May 10, 1993): 118.

"The art of pit-stop management." Economist (August 10, 1996): 52.

Other

"Grand Prix drivers: Jackie Stewart." GrandPrix.com. http://www.grandprix.com (October 30, 2002).

"Grand Prix drivers: Jim Clark." GrandPrix.com. http://www.grandprix.com (October 30, 2002).

"Jackie Stewart." Formula One Art & Genius. http://f1-grandprix.com (October 30, 2002).

"Jackie Stewart." Formula One Database. http://f1db.com (October 30, 2002).

"Jackie Stewart." Grand Prix Hall of Fame. http://www.ddavid.com/formula1 (October 30, 2002).

"Jimmy Clark." Grand Prix Hall of Fame. http://www.ddavid.com/formula1 (October 30, 2002).

"Stewart: Monaco and Indy were special." ABC Sports. http://espn.go.com/abcsports (October 30, 2002).

Sketch by Brenna Sanchez