In 1965, the legendary Formula 1 driver Jim Clark made history by winning the Indianapolis 500 with his beloved Team Lotus, becoming the only driver in history to win the 500 and the Formula 1 Championship in the same year.

Now, 60 years after that incredible feat, the Wood Brothers Racing NASCAR team is paying tribute to that Lotus livery at Darlington’s throwback weekend. Why? Because the Wood Brothers pit crew serviced Clark’s car.

Jim Clark, Lotus, NASCAR, and the 1965 Indianapolis 500

Wait — why is a NASCAR team racing with a throwback Lotus livery? What did NASCAR have to do with Team Lotus conquering the 1965 Indianapolis 500 with Jim Clark?

Everything.

Let’s wind the clocks back, to 1961 and the so-called “British Invasion” that had swept motorsport. That year, Cooper shipped a car off to the Indianapolis 500 for Jack Brabham to race, making him one of the first active Formula 1 drivers to sample America’s biggest event since Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio gave it a shot in the mid-1950s.

This was a period in motorsport history where the Formula 1 World Championship was picking up steam in terms of sponsor dollars and prestige, but where it simply didn’t compare to the financial windfall that could come from the Indy 500.  Drivers like Jim Clark couldn’t live on Formula 1 winnings alone; they needed to head to Australia for the Tasman Series over the winter, compete in Formula 2 races throughout Europe, and perhaps even the Indy 500.

In a 1965 edition of Motor Sport Magazine, respected racing reporter Denis Jenkinson reported that winning the Monaco Grand Prix that year would net the winner £700 (though that didn’t take into account starting or appearance money), compared to the £50,000 or more a driver could receive for winning the Indy 500.

Clearly, Colin Chapman and Team Lotus wanted in, and in 1963, the outfit entered the Greatest Spectacle in Racing with Jim Clark and Dan Gurney.

That car, the Lotus 29, was the first rear-engined racer to show the front-engine-dominated American field that a different configuration could be competitive thanks to Clark’s second and Gurney’s seventh-place finishing positions.

But it would take until 1965 for Clark and Lotus to win the race, and that’s because the team introduced the iconic Lotus 38 for the occasion. Powered by a Ford V8 engine and designed with the 500 in mind, this car was larger than the Grand Prix cars of its era but still much smaller and more nimble than the Indianapolis-only racers it was competing against.

Jim Clark lined up on the starting grid for the 1965 Indy 500 in second place, and he led 190 of the race’s 200 laps to bring home a victory. He became the first foreign-born racer to win the race since 1920, when Frenchman Gaston Chevrolet took the honors, and Lotus boasted the first-ever win for a rear-engined car at Indy.

But this story isn’t just one of a British success over American racers. Rather, Wood Brothers Racing — the oldest continuously operating team in NASCAR history — played a significant role.

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Sixty years have passed since that exceptional 1965 season, and, interestingly enough, the first tribute to Clark’s success has come from none other than the Wood Brothers NASCAR team — the only NASCAR team to be powered by Ford from its first race to its most recent.

In the mid-1960s, open-wheel racing wasn’t exactly familiar with the concept of a dedicated pit crew, nor had sports like Formula 1 or Indy car racing adopted the high-tech solutions that the folks over in NASCAR were implementing.

Stock car racing teams were early adopters of air compression, which meant that impact wrenches and floor jacks could be used rather than brute strength to lift and service a car. Further, with so many races on the calendar, NASCAR crews had plenty of opportunities to learn the complex pit stop choreography required to get a car back on track.

As such, NASCAR crews found themselves a hot commodity, particularly as it pertained to Ford’s racing endeavors. Ford was known for commandeering its NASCAR crews to service endurance racing teams — and, critical for this story, Team Lotus’ 1965 Indy 500 entry.

“When we were asked by Ford Motor Company to pit Jim Clark’s car for the Indy 500, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our family,” said Leonard Wood, co-founder of the Wood Brothers Racing team.

“We were just a group of guys from Stuart, Virginia, working on stock cars, and suddenly, we were part of something that would become a unique part of our history.”

Ford Motor Company racing official John Cowley made the offer to Glenn Wood, fittingly, at Darlington.

The Wood Brothers crew agreed, and its quick stops were one of the critical factors that saw Lotus’ Jim Clark cross the finish line in first place.

Each year, NASCAR hosts a ‘throwback weekend’ at Darlington Raceway, where teams are encouraged to compete with one-off liveries that pay homage to the past. Thanks to its history, Wood Brothers often races with the red-and-white livery that has frequently adorned its cars since the team’s debut in 1950.

But for the 2025 Darlington race, the Wood Brothers have decided to throw it back to 1965, and to one of the most fascinating elements of the team’s history.

The throwback event is titled the Goodyear 400, and it’ll take place on Sunday, April 6 at 3pm ET.

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