{"id":493146,"date":"2013-06-01T18:00:16","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T18:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=17578"},"modified":"2024-01-08T14:23:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T14:23:33","slug":"roy-pike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/roy-pike\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Pike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Roy<\/a>
Roy Pike
Photo: Pete Austin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The special relationship between Great Britain and the USA is said to be strong in the political arena; it\u2019s for sure stronger in motor racing terms. Many talented Americans have crossed the Atlantic to hone their talents in the UK\u2019s racing scene over the years. Examples include Whitney Straight, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Danny Sullivan, Davy Jones and more. Another was Roy Pike. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1939 and raised in California, Pike has been based in Britain since 1962 and was regarded as the best driver of the “screamer era” of Formula 3. VR\u2019s Simon Stiel talked to him about it as the category approaches its 50th year.<\/i><\/p>\n

You started racing 50 years ago didn\u2019t you?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: That\u2019s right, in an MG TD. I picked up a Hot Rod magazine because we were all into cars and they had, \u201cModify your TD.\u201d I thought, \u201cChrist, that\u2019s a good idea,\u201d so I bought one. You could buy one in those days. I had a Chevrolet so I traded it in, got $200 for that. The MG cost $1000 and I paid it off gradually. I started modifying the engine and got more interested. I\u2019d pick up the Autosport sort of three months late and read those as well.<\/p>\n

You did autocross in it?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: You went to large parking lots and\u00a0 did driving tests. You also did things called high-speed driving tests where you drove around pylons and what have you. I was underage then, so I got a temporary driving license and changed my age. In the States you had to be 21 to start racing because of insurance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
At Silverstone for the 1965 International Trophy Formula Three preliminary contest Pike, in the Chequered Flag Brabham BT15 #6, duels for the lead with Piers Courage in Charles Lucas Engineering\u2019s #11 Brabham BT10. Courage would prevail over Pike, winning by 13 seconds at the end of 25 laps.\u00a0Photo: Ferret Fotos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You then built your own Formula Junior?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: I was in touch with someone who designed something essentially called the Apache. He designed the car, I built it and then modified it as well. That had an MG engine on its side, which I took from an Indycar that was running then that ran an Offenhauser on its side. I put downdraft Solex carburettors on it and dry-sumped it. I did that for a year, and we then built another with an Austin Sprite engine in it. I raced that for a year and then I came to Great Britain.<\/p>\n

Yes, and did you take your life savings with you?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: I sold everything I had. Took the bus across the United States and got on a boat. See, what happened was, I crossed the Bay one day and met John Layton, who\u2019s an Australian, by pure accident. He said I should go to England and buy an Ausper. So I thought that was a good idea. I bought up a year-old Ausper from the people who made it, I finished building the car and I started racing it. I got help, luckily, from a chap named Roy Thomas who had a garage on Gold Hawk road. He eventually designed the Titan for Charles Lucas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Here\u2019s Pike in the Gemini Formula Junior, ready for a session at Brands Hatch in 1963.<\/p>\n

Photo: Ferret Fotos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You had considerable success with the Ausper.<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: I was quite quick in it really, considering it was a year-old car and it wasn\u2019t a very good car when it was new! A lot of it was learning really, I was very fortunate I had a car I could learn in. I spun it, but I didn\u2019t actually ever damage it; I never knocked any wheels off or damaged the wishbones, never blew up the engine, never destroyed the gearbox. I finished the year with the same car I started with. At the end of the year, Tom (Roy Thomas)\u2014one time he\u2019d built the chassis for the Geminis\u2014spoke to Graham Warner and said: \u201cGet Roy to drive your car.\u201d They took me down to a test day at Brands Hatch and I broke the lap record. They let me drive it on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n

In \u201963, I didn’t start driving for George Henrotte until halfway through the year when Ross Greenville lost his leg at Aintree. I did three or four races and then won at Crystal Palace. The next weekend I broke my leg at Brands Hatch in an accident that wasn\u2019t my fault. David Hobbs spun on the first lap and scattered the field at the end of the Bottom Straight. I hit the bank and broke my leg. I thought I\u2019d build a Lotus 23, but I only raced that for one race and sold it to Charles Lucas. I bought a downdraft engine and a damaged Lotus 22 and we modified that and took it to a 1000-cc meeting. I drove that at two races, at Mallory Park and Crystal Palace. Then I blew the engine up at Reims; and then helped Piers (Courage) and Jonathan (Williams). That was in \u201964 I think. I bought the Brabham for \u201965.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
After edging Piers Courage by 0.6 seconds to win the Formula Three\u2008portion of Goodwood\u2019s 1965 Easter Monday meeting, Pike proudly displays his trophy\u2014the victor\u2019s laurel wreath still around his neck\u2014while seated in his Chequered Flag Brabham BT15.
Photo: Ferret Fotos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How would you compare driving Formula 3 to Formula Junior?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: Very much the same. Obviously, the cars had more grip. You were sliding around a lot more earlier on and gradually the tires got wider, and if you started sliding about you lost speed and you lost revs; you had to keep the revs up, so you had to be more precise.<\/p>\n

For \u201965 you had major success winning seven races.<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: I think I won more F3 races than anybody else; anyway, at least more major F3 races. But I was never able to really get into Formula Two properly and you really want to go from Formula Two to Formula One, but there you are.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll talk about that later, but what was it like interacting with Piers Courage and Jonathan Williams off the circuit?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: We were great friends because I met them at the Racing Car Show at the end of \u201962. Jonathan and I\u2014I was given a Merlyn and I supplied the engine\u2014we decided to go together to Monaco, but both of us broke wishbones at the bump before Tabac, and we both hit the wall. Jonathan ended up in hospital and I just gave him the car back because I didn\u2019t trust it. Breaking wishbones under braking really wasn\u2019t a good thing. Jonathan gave it up and I think he started with a Lotus 22. I put him in touch with Roy Thomas and then Charles came along and Piers. That\u2019s how Lucas Engineering started.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Promising young American racer Roy Pike at speed in his Brabham BT15 Formula Three car at Brands Hatch in 1965.\u00a0Photo: Ferret Fotos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1966, as we talked about regarding Bill Ivy, you won two races but the Lotus 41 wasn\u2019t as good as the Brabham was it?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: It was a very bad car. I had to decide to stay with Graham or go to Charles, and because I knew Tom I felt we could get the car going as well as anything else. Charles was also talking about buying a Ferrari for sportscar races, but we ended up only doing Le Mans.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Le Mans, didn\u2019t you partner Piers Courage in \u201966 and win the GT category?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: Yeah, that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t you do several sportscar races with Paul Vestey?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: That Ferrari was never very well prepared, it was an LM. The best race I ever did, but nobody would really notice it, was at Daytona. That was the first time I drove it. Long-distance racing to me is not a bore, but it was very easy because you didn\u2019t feel like you were driving very quickly. You sort to have to conserve the car, so all you do is grind up the laps. It might be different if you\u2019re actually racing for the lead, but most of these longer races you\u2019re half a lap behind and more or less, you\u2019re maintaining your position.<\/p>\n

Talking about the sprint of F3, your approach has been described as meticulous. Would you describe that yourself?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: Yes, I was further ahead in the technical side of cars than most people were. Firestone would come and talk to me when I had Firestones, and Dunlop would talk to me when I had Dunlops on. I\u2019d give them an opinion about what was happening. I was always interested in cars, I was interested in the technical side. I\u2019d adjust the brakes and move the brake balance about and fiddle around with things. I did three races with Paul Westbury in \u201967\u00a0 and the mechanic called my wife Mrs. Fiddler! I\u2019d change all kinds of things very quickly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Diving for the apex at London\u2019s Crystal Palace during the Bromley Bowl F3 race in 1966, Pike\u2019s Lotus 41 (#23)\u2008leads Piers Courage\u2019s similar car (#22) He would ultimately finish 4th behind victor Chris Irwin, Courage and Peter Gethin.
Photo: BRDC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking of change, Roy Thomas produced the Titan for \u201967. Was it considered a well-designed car?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: It was. There was nothing exceptional about it, I mean as far as design, but it was very well-balanced and it was easy for me to drive. It wasn\u2019t actually made for me to drive, but I adapted and it was a very successful car. Charles was able to cope with it quite well.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t you put it on pole position for its debut at Silverstone?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: That\u2019s right, but beyond that we had a steering failure at Goodwood three or four days before. After about four or five laps the steering broke. I crashed at the end of the Lavant Straight and virtually wrote the car off. So the car I raced at Silverstone was a brand-new car. I was very confident in the car.<\/p>\n

Is it true that Dan Gurney was interested in you?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: That\u2019s because I knew the team manager, he was another American, I met him, I can\u2019t remember how, and he was interested, but Dan had enough trouble with the Eagle and actually making it reliable. I went down to Goodwood and wanted to test it with Richie Ginther, but it rained and rained and rained. You don\u2019t actually want to send somebody new out in the rain, even though it had a Coventry Climax 2.7-liter engine in it. It was sort of unsaid, \u201cThis isn\u2019t really a good idea,\u201d and it never sort of popped up again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
For the British Grand Prix F3 support race at Brands Hatch in1968, Pike and his Titan Mk3 started from pole and finished 2nd, a slim 2.2 seconds back of victor John Miles in Jeff Uren\u2019s Lotus 41X.
Photo: Keith Booker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Weren\u2019t the magazines saying you\u2019d been in the category too long?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: Undoubtedly that was true. I should have been able to move on. What happened was, I had won a lot of races in \u201965 and \u201966, but I didn\u2019t even get an offer from anybody for a F3 drive in \u201967 until Peter Westbury. At the end of the year Tom finished the Titan so I drove that.<\/p>\n

What was the team preparation like at Charles Lucas?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: It was as good as anybody else. Obviously, it wasn\u2019t nearly as meticulous then as it is now. In \u201965 on one engine I did Silverstone, another club race, I won at Oulton Park, Goodwood, Pau, Magny Cours and did a heat at Zolder and won that and finished 2nd in the final. Then we took the engine out.<\/p>\n

F3 was a good place to be, but you couldn\u2019t be there for very long. I was never able to extricate myself. This is what I say, I think one of the reasons was I was a American and there were no American racing teams. If you\u2019re English, they\u2019re more likely to take an English driver and if you\u2019re French they\u2019ll take a French driver. The French were very keen on getting their drivers out of F3. If I\u2019d been French I think, I would have followed Jaussaud or Pescarolo. I didn\u2019t actually know anybody because I didn\u2019t grow up with anybody. I didn\u2019t live in the north of England, it was in a small part of London. I knew the people that I knew, but it was a small number of people. I had no sort of ins, it was only by word of mouth that somebody would ring me up and say, \u201cWould you drive for me?\u201d I drove a Porsche for Mike de Udy for two races.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
For the 1968 BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch, Pike shared this Paul Vestey-entered Ferrari 250LM with Paul Ridgeway. They finished 15th behind winners Brian Redman and Jacky Ickx in one of John Wyer\u2019s Gulf Ford GT40s. This was the race Jim Clark could have run had he decided not to go to Hockenheim.
Photo: Keith Booker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking of drivers, you knew Piers Courage quite well, I\u2019ve read elsewhere that John Coombs had tried to persuade him to stop racing. What was your impression?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: Piers didn\u2019t realize he couldn\u2019t be hurt. Well, I\u2019m not making the point particularly about Piers, but in general at that time it was very dangerous. If you went off you could kill yourself quite easily. It wasn\u2019t very difficult because of a telephone pole or stone wall. If you were extremely brave and didn\u2019t really think about it very much, you could be very fast because you\u2019d be faster than other people who\u2019d tried to stay on the limit. Piers didn\u2019t think about going off, it didn\u2019t really sort of impinge on him at all. I think he might have not been killed if he perhaps had an accident and actually hurt himself. It might have got through to him it was dangerous. I\u2019m sure he realized it was dangerous, but he was always very much on the edge. You had a lot of drivers who were very aggressive and very late on the braking edges, and we\u2019d say there was a chop-list of drivers. You had new people who unless they were very fortunate were going to be killed, or injured anyway, then they\u2019ll slow down a bit. That happened to Jackie Stewart. He had his accident at Spa, he realized what could happen and he was so skillful and so good that he could drive within an easy limit and still be quicker than anybody else.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Did you feel you had that ability?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: Well, I probably didn\u2019t have the personality. Some drivers adapt better when they\u2019re in the car and it\u2019s a bit like playing any sort of sport. Some people cope with the stress of what\u2019s happening better than others. I probably didn\u2019t cope with the pressure as well as other people. I was always very tense. I had the benefit because I\u2019d win races leading, I would quite often get a good lead at the end of the first lap. I was also very switched-on. I found the pressure of Monaco was very… I never succeeded there when I should have won there, I enjoyed that sort of circuit. I won two races at Pau, same sort of circuit, and the three times I was there I was on pole position each time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Pike in the Gold Leaf Team Lotus 59 for the Guards International Trophy race at Brands Hatch in September of 1969.\u00a0Photo: Pete Austin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After Formula 2 in 1969, you went F5000 racing.<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: Ralph Broad rang me and he had a Leda that Chris Craft was driving and for some reason they couldn\u2019t make it work. He asked, could I come and drive it. Went to Silverstone and drove it. Then from that Ford of Germany called and asked if I would go to Czechoslovakia and drive the Ford Capri. Which I did. What happened very much with motor racing then, you\u2019d go to some circuit you\u2019ve never seen before, you\u2019re in a car you’ve never driven before and off you go. Sometimes on very difficult circuits that are quite long, so it\u2019s difficult to do much in terms of performance.<\/p>\n

Then, after the 1970 season, you retired?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: I just stopped. Morris Nunn rang me up and asked if I would drive his new car, the Ensign, but I didn\u2019t want to anymore. I think that\u2019s what you do, at some point you stop and that\u2019s it. I had no real desire to sort of keep going on and on. It\u2019s much easier to stop and walk away from it. I was married and had two children and I didn\u2019t see much point. I wasn\u2019t going to get to Formula One and that\u2019s where I wanted to be.<\/p>\n

While you didn\u2019t get where you wanted to be, could you say you enjoyed yourself?<\/b><\/p>\n

Pike: I was very fortunate that I survived and I can look can book and say, \u201cOh yes. I was fortunate. I survived, I wasn’t killed.\u201d The people I raced with, the only one who ever won a race was Peter Gethin, who I thought was probably the least likely person ever to win an F1 race. Jonathan, well he drove in F1, but to a degree he shouldn\u2019t have. Chris Irwin was the best, I think, and he then had that big accident at the N\u00fcrburgring, and Piers was killed. I was very fortunate that I survived and I can look back and say 50 years ago I did this, that and whatever. There you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The special relationship between Great Britain and the USA is said to be strong in the political arena; it\u2019s for sure stronger in motor racing terms. Many talented Americans have crossed the Atlantic to hone their talents in the UK\u2019s racing scene over the years. Examples include Whitney Straight, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Danny Sullivan, Davy Jones and more. Another was Roy Pike. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1939 and raised in California, Pike has been based in Britain since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":554458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,18114,18330],"tags":[17152,18435,18107,16791],"class_list":["post-493146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-culture","category-people","category-profiles-car-culture","tag-car-culture","tag-people","tag-people-profiles","tag-profiles"],"yoast_head":"\nRoy Pike<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Roy Pike, Simon Stiel speaks with the long-retired American racer who once flashed brilliantly in British Formula 3.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/roy-pike\/\" 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