He hammered past the pits to begin a new lap, and at the first corner, Madgwick chose his line with his usual impeccable, motor-cycle bred judgment. He braked, steadied and set up the car aiming just inside the notional apex because he knew the notorious hump in the track there would nudge his car just that extra foot or so to the left.
As he tore into the turn, up ahead of him he would have been watching the shapely tail of a metallic mid-green Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato. It was the Essex Racing Stable entry – effectively a proxy works car – which was being driven by Team Lotus Formula 1 star Jim Clark. It was fresh from a pit stop, refuel and wheel-change, still building speed after rejoining the race...
Just imagine that sun-soaked scene. First into Madgwick, about to be lapped by the leading Ferrari, was the Italian-bodied but otherwise all-British Aston Martin driven by the young Scottish driving genius who was the hottest Formula 1 property of the period. Jimmy had just scored the first World Championship-qualifying Grand Prix win of what was to be his illustrious – double-World Championship-winning – career in that year’s Belgian GP on June 17th, followed by his second great win, in his home British Grand Prix at Aintree on July 21st. In the German GP at the Nurburgring on August 5 he’d finished fourth after having “stupidly forgotten” (his words) to switch on his works Lotus 25’s fuel pump on the starting grid.
That German Grand Prix had seen John Surtees finish second in his Bowmaker-liveried Lola-Climax, 2.5 seconds behind Graham Hill’s victorious BRM V8, but 1.9 seconds ahead of Dan Gurney’s flat-8 Porsche in third. John – already a seven-time Motorcycle World Champion – had been establishing himself within the four-wheeled racing world. In the Lola that year he had already finished second behind Jimmy in the British Grand Prix, and now in the Goodwood TT – thirteen days after the Nurburgring race (which was run on a Sunday, whereas the TT was, of course in England in those days, took place on a Saturday) – he was leading the great race in the gleaming V12-engined Ferrari 250 GTO, about to gobble up Jimmy in the delayed Aston Martin Zagato.
It was Jimmy who reached the Madgwick hump first. His Zagato ‘2 VEV’ was lightweight, with tremendous power and torque from its latest 3.8-litre straight-six engine – much bigger than the 3-litre Ferrari closing fast behind. The Zagato crested the hump, settled, and lurched as its rear tyres lost adhesion. This slide was one too many even for the great Jim Clark to catch. On its fresh, still-cold rear tyres, ‘2 VEV’ careened into a broadside. Surtees almost missed it, but the Aston ‘s course took it reversing across the available track-width, and, as if by magnetic attraction, Maranello rammed Feltham. In those days on treaded Dunlop Racing covers one could hear tyres scream. Amidst a flurry of blue rubber smoke, the future World Champions spun in unison onto the left-side grass verge and thumped into the retaining bank, the Aston tail first, the Ferrari more nose-on.