[Spridgets] Colors--BRG...British Racing Green

[Robert Bruce Evans]

David Lieb wrote: "Wow, you didn't mention "British Racing Green"! I am so proud of you..."
BRG. British Racing Green. Once upon a time, a long time ago, it was the most hallowed and beloved color...err, colour...among those who revered the English cars.
How many here can remember furor when in 1963, Jim Clark stormed the Indianapolis 500 in the British Racing Green livery of Team Lotus? Colin Chapman's Team Lotus sported what was and continues to be known at BRG, for in the European racing tradition of earlier days, cars wore their national colours (e.g. Red for Italy, therefore Ferrari). England's national color was green.
The myth, the legend, the fear at Indianapolis had always been that green was an unlucky color; unlucky not only for the car and driver who sported it, but everyone else in the race. In 1963, many veteran Indy drivers were seriously angered that this pipsqueak little Scot would tempt *their* fate with his green car. Some drivers threatened to pull out of the race, and pressure was put on Tony Hulman and USAC to prohibit Clark from racing in green car. Fortunately, neither Chapman nor Hulman caved in, and Clark raced his BRG Lotus (I think it was a 25), coming in at incredible second. Incredible because no American thought it possible. The next year he was doing even better, leading until his suspension crapped out in the first 100 laps. Then, in 1965, he did the impossible. He won the 500 in a Lotus 31, although he was driving a green car, and a *mid-engined" one, to boot! Mid-engine? Americans believed it an idiot's design. Before the race, I can remember getting in arguments with race drivers here in California who believed it was a fool's pursuit! Nor did they believe that the dominant Offenhauser engines could ever lose a race! What a glorious day it was for those of us who had already been converted to the English sports cars. 
Can anyone else remember going to races or other sports car events where "Jim Clark for President" signs were sprouting up everywhere?!?! In what must rank as one of the greatest losses in motor racing, Clack died less than three years later, at 32, when instead of running at Brands Hatch, he was required to drive at Hockenheimring instead. Early in the race, a tire went flat, sending him off the track and into trees, killing him instantly. Why did he have to give up Brands Hatch and go to Germany? Because of sponsor obligations for, of all companies, *Firestone*. Without question, Jim Clark was one of the greatest drivers of *any* generation!
(Clark, of course, was not the first driver of British cars to come to Indianapolis, nor the first that *some* would like to believe drove a green car. In 1961, Jack Brabham brought a Cooper-Coventry Climax to Indy; a car that some claim was green, but most agree was a very dark blue that, depending upon the light, could appear to be either very dark green or black.)
Buster Evans