McLaren Page #3

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And he would come in the next morning

and show us what he'd drawn

and what he'd built.

PHIL:
Bruce and Jack

talked about life after Cooper.

MICHAEL CLARK:
Here we had

effectively a perfect storm.

The two drivers in the team,

not just fantastic drivers

but both capable of engineering

and designing a winning racing car.

Jack Brabham left the Cooper team

at the end of 1961,

and started construction of his own cars.

The engineer in Bruce must have thought,

"That's something which

I really need to do one day."

- How did you go, Bruce?

- That was pretty good that time, John.

I think a bit too much braking on the

back, but otherwise nearly perfect.

PATTY:
Monte Carlo was just magical.

They used to have the film festival

the week before,

so all the stars would stay over.

It was tremendous.

And we used to travel in convoy

with the various other drivers,

and we'd stop off in some little motel.

But we had great fun, you know,

travelling around together.

COLIN:
In those days, all the drivers

were friends with each other,

but they were very determined competitors.

MICHAEL CLARK:
Bruce was now the number

one driver at Coopers.

WALLY:
There was an awful lot of pressure.

COLIN:
All the leading drivers were there.

Jimmy Clark and Graham Hill.

On the front row of the grid was Bruce.

COMMENTATOR:

Five, four, three, two, one. Drive!

Graham Hill. Ooh, look at that.

That was Willy Mairesse with the Ferrari.

PHIL:
This was Monaco.

(TYRES SCREECH)

Any driver that can finish at Monaco

in my book's a hero.

It was a real endurance event.

Two and three-quarter hours,

2,700 gear changes, hard on the brakes,

and hard on the steering.

Bruce was in the lead,

followed by Phil Hill in a Ferrari.

Phil Hill was closing on Bruce,

and chasing him down.

And everybody in the Cooper pit

got terribly nervous.

COMMENTATOR:
Up on to the straight

for the last time,

and Bruce McLaren

wins the 20th Monte Carlo Grand Prix

by two seconds.

PHIL:
Everybody was absolutely ecstatic,

John Cooper more probably

than anyone else.

As Bruce said to me later, he said,

"Phil Hill may have caught up with me,

but there was no way

he was gonna get past me. No way."

BRUCE:
Coopers have been really

brightened up by the Monaco result.

And I don't have to tell you, folks,

Patty had a ball meeting royalty.

PATTY:
Grace and Rainier had a cocktail

party. I was fixated by the emeralds.

The necklace, the earrings,

the bracelet, the ring.

And it was just fabulous.

Bruce McLaren by then

was a jet-set person.

World-renowned, youngest Grand Prix

winner of all time at that time.

OVER TV:
Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark,

Innes Ireland, racing aces now...

JACKIE STEWART:
Bruce was a superstar.

PATTY:
We had great fun, you know,

travelling around together.

OVER TV:
Time...

Our life is time,

and heartbeats are seconds.

Whatever we do, our preoccupation

with time is constant.

JACKIE STEWART:
Speed doesn't exist

for a top racing driver.

Your mind completely synchronizes

with the elements

you're competing against,

and one of those elements is speed.

PATTY:
There's an element of danger

but Bruce was such a careful person.

PHIL:
But sadly,

motor racing has its share of tragedies.

(TYRES SCREECH)

MICHAEL CLARK:
Over the years, Bruce saw

a number of his friends killed.

PHIL:
You're dealing with human beings,

cars that are put together

by human beings, so they can break.

Human beings driving them,

so they can make mistakes.

COLIN:
Drivers know that sort of thing's

on any time they get into a car, really.

BRUCE:
It may sound callous,

but if you're going to keep racing,

to think on an accident is bad.

It's best to try and forget

as soon as possible.

JACKIE STEWART:

Everything is in slow motion,

you've got plenty of time to brake,

you've got plenty of time

to change direction.

Speed only happens

when you're having an accident.

(NURSE SPEAKS GERMAN)

WALLY:
At Nrburgring he had an

accident, a high-speed accident.

PHIL:
Bruce said he only remembers

waking up in hospital.

BRUCE:
I'd once promised myself I'd give

up motor racing if I had a major crash.

But I found myself thinking, "Not yet."

And I'd like to start something big.

Run my own outfit.

PHIL:
Bruce was preparing for the future.

DAN GURNEY:
Bruce was a great student

in that university which was Coopers.

He had a voracious appetite

for information.

That burning curiosity and intelligence.

He had the ability to think big.

WALLY:
When Jack Brabham left,

it became very obvious

that Coopers didn't want drivers

being involved in design,

or in the drawing of it.

And that's where Bruce's passion lay.

MICHAEL CLARK:
Bruce, as an engineer,

could see that Coopers' best days

were behind them.

This was the start of his plan

to get his own full team together.

PATTY:
Jack said, "It's difficult,

but if you want to do it, go for it."

I think the first thing I did for Bruce,

apart from...

I mean, I painted him several times,

of course, winning races.

But he asked me to design a badge

for the then embryo McLaren Racing Team.

This tatty old ledger

came to light recently.

I've got an entry here: "Designing badge

for Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Limited.

For use on racing cars, transporters,

letterheads, lapel badges.

Thirty-nine pounds."

And he said, "Yeah, can you design

a badge that is relevant

to a New Zealand team?"

He was very proud of his heritage,

and New Zealand.

OK, Kiwi, racing car,

the name of the team, a badge.

Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Team.

WALLY:
Bruce McLaren Motor Racing was

first formed to race in New Zealand.

In the Cooper workshop in England,

Bruce and I had built a car

specially to win the New Zealand

Grand Prix, from the ground up.

MICHAEL CLARK:
The car was, for all

intents and purposes, a McLaren car,

but because he was still contracted to

and driving for Cooper,

then it made sense to call it a Cooper.

But it was really Bruce's deal.

WALLY:
Cooper copied our car,

and built a second car for Timmy Mayer.

MICHAEL CLARK:
Timmy Mayer was a young

American driver, Bruce's teammate,

and to some extent, protg.

COLIN:
Timmy was a very approachable

young fellow.

He'd done very well in England

in Formula Junior.

WALLY:
With his brother, Teddy,

as his team manager.

It was the New Zealand Grand Prix.

This was what we were here for.

COMMENTATOR:
Away goes the field

of crack drivers

on their high-speedjourney of 150 miles.

(ENGINES WHINE)

WALLY:
Lap after lap with fingers crossed.

And to win in a car

that Bruce and I had designed

and built ourselves was just tremendous.

Lots of hugs all round,

it was a huge effort.

But, as you learn in motor racing,

the highs and lows were enormous.

In practice at Longford,

the last race of the series,

Timmy talked to Bruce about a hump

in the road just prior to a corner,

because Timmy felt that

he was braking before it,

and could possibly brake after it.

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