Hockenheim Historic – 50 years after Jim Clark‘s tragic death  Words and images by Roman Klemm

Hockenheimring, Germany‘s only Grand Prix circuit has started its 2018 international season (21-22 April), its first great event of the year traditionally being the ‘Bosch Hockenheim Historic in Memory of Jim Clark’.

Well, it has to be said that the promoters failed to come up with fresh ideas; how to commemorate the half-century that has passed since the rainy day of 7 April in 1968 when the great Scot was killed in his Lotus-Ford.

The German organisers produced the same on-track programme as previous years, which has little to do with Clark’s career. But, it was still possible to meet some contemporary witnesses of that day in the sixties; Former F1-winner Jochen Mass lead a ceremony by laying a wreath at Jim’s memorial (which is no longer situated at the place of his accident), and was attended by Clive Chapman (who was flown there from Imola), Warren King, Doug Niven and Ian Calder.

To be fair, most of the 20,000 spectators did not come to remember Clark, but to enjoy motorsport under a sunny sky – and all of them must have left highly satisfied as there was plenty of action on the track and in the paddock.

All the participating championships offered good racing; Boss GP for F1 and GP2 cars thrilled the fans along with CanAm cars, along with historic touring and DTM cars, Formula 2, Formula Lurani and some one-marque races.

At the huge market there were plenty of stalls with old books, magazines and spare parts for sale. Even autograph hunters found their paradise; Jochen Mass, Christian Danner, Michael Bartels, Marco Werner and Ellen Lohr were on hand, representing a great part of Germany’s motorsport history.

But, as I mentioned above, a shame it’s all been seen before, as well as the personalities. The event lacked some deeper coherence to its main theme – the reminiscence of the 50th Anniversary of Jim Clark’s death at Hockkenheim.