REMEMBERING JIM CLARK; 35 years ago, the racing world lost one of its best.(News)

Byline: ERIC DYMOCK

To a generation grow-ing up in the 1960s, Jim Clark was living testimony to proficiency, to a belief that if you were good enough you could do anything, win world championships, live a sweet life, even cheat death.

This was a generation that had never imagined the president of the most powerful country on earth being gunned down in its lifetime. It also never imagined Jim Clark would die in a racing car. ``If ever I saw genius at work,'' Dan Gurney, the driver he most admired once said to me, ``I saw it in Jimmy Clark.''

In 1968 Clark was at the height of his powers. No driver since Fangio, who won five world championships, so dominated every department of motor racing. Clark won in sports cars, in Formula One and at Indianapolis, with the same grace and apparent ease. He set the pace, set the standards; he was the driver against whom all the others measured their performances.

Out of a car he was famously insecure. An inveterate nail-biter, he grew increasingly apprehensive about accidents due to mechanical failures. Driving Colin Chapman's brilliant but frail creations, he had a lot to be apprehensive about, but he was probably too shy and retiring to make a fuss. He grew more introspective right up to the accident, in an obscure Formula 2 race-a second division event in which his Lotus was outclassed-at Hockenheim, Germany, that claimed his life on April 7, 1968. Clark's car went off the road on the fastest section of the course, crashed into trees, and the world champion of 1963 and 1965 died of a broken neck.

Motor racing almost died of a broken heart.

Clark's talent had been so consummate that, almost without thinking about it, he would compensate for the deficiencies of an indifferent car. Often to the despair of his engineers he would test-drive it, set fastest time and say, ``Fine-leave it as it is.'' Teammates, such as Graham Hill, would wrestle with this and that, yet still fail to match his speed. Clark's deftness was supreme.