Roy Pike

The special relationship between Great Britain and the USA is said to be strong in the political arena; it’s for sure stronger in motor racing terms. Many talented Americans have crossed the Atlantic to hone their talents in the UK’s 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’s Simon Stiel talked to him about it as the category approaches its 50th year.

You started racing 50 years ago didn’t you?

Pike: That’s right, in an MG TD. I picked up a Hot Rod magazine because we were all into cars and they had, “Modify your TD.” I thought, “Christ, that’s a good idea,” 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’d pick up the Autosport sort of three months late and read those as well.

You did autocross in it?

Pike: You went to large parking lots and  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.

You then built your own Formula Junior?

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.

Yes, and did you take your life savings with you?

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’s 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.

You had considerable success with the Ausper.

Pike: I was quite quick in it really, considering it was a year-old car and it wasn’t 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’t 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)—one time he’d built the chassis for the Geminis—spoke to Graham Warner and said: “Get Roy to drive your car.” 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.

In ’63, 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’t 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’d 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 ’64 I think. I bought the Brabham for ’65.

How would you compare driving Formula 3 to Formula Junior?

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.

For ’65 you had major success winning seven races.

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.

We’ll talk about that later, but what was it like interacting with Piers Courage and Jonathan Williams off the circuit?

Pike: We were great friends because I met them at the Racing Car Show at the end of ’62. Jonathan and I—I was given a Merlyn and I supplied the engine—we 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’t trust it. Breaking wishbones under braking really wasn’t 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’s how Lucas Engineering started.

In 1966, as we talked about regarding Bill Ivy, you won two races but the Lotus 41 wasn’t as good as the Brabham was it?

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.

Speaking of Le Mans, didn’t you partner Piers Courage in ’66 and win the GT category?

Pike: Yeah, that’s right.

Didn’t you do several sportscar races with Paul Vestey?

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’t 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’re actually racing for the lead, but most of these longer races you’re half a lap behind and more or less, you’re maintaining your position.

Talking about the sprint of F3, your approach has been described as meticulous. Would you describe that yourself?

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’d give them an opinion about what was happening. I was always interested in cars, I was interested in the technical side. I’d adjust the brakes and move the brake balance about and fiddle around with things. I did three races with Paul Westbury in ’67  and the mechanic called my wife Mrs. Fiddler! I’d change all kinds of things very quickly.

Speaking of change, Roy Thomas produced the Titan for ’67. Was it considered a well-designed car?

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’t 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.

Didn’t you put it on pole position for its debut at Silverstone?

Pike: That’s 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.

Is it true that Dan Gurney was interested in you?

Pike: That’s because I knew the team manager, he was another American, I met him, I can’t 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’t 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, “This isn’t really a good idea,” and it never sort of popped up again.

Weren’t the magazines saying you’d been in the category too long?

Pike: Undoubtedly that was true. I should have been able to move on. What happened was, I had won a lot of races in ’65 and ’66, but I didn’t even get an offer from anybody for a F3 drive in ’67 until Peter Westbury. At the end of the year Tom finished the Titan so I drove that.

What was the team preparation like at Charles Lucas?

Pike: It was as good as anybody else. Obviously, it wasn’t nearly as meticulous then as it is now. In ’65 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.

F3 was a good place to be, but you couldn’t 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’re English, they’re more likely to take an English driver and if you’re French they’ll take a French driver. The French were very keen on getting their drivers out of F3. If I’d been French I think, I would have followed Jaussaud or Pescarolo. I didn’t actually know anybody because I didn’t grow up with anybody. I didn’t 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, “Would you drive for me?” I drove a Porsche for Mike de Udy for two races.

Speaking of drivers, you knew Piers Courage quite well, I’ve read elsewhere that John Coombs had tried to persuade him to stop racing. What was your impression?

Pike: Piers didn’t realize he couldn’t be hurt. Well, I’m 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’t very difficult because of a telephone pole or stone wall. If you were extremely brave and didn’t really think about it very much, you could be very fast because you’d be faster than other people who’d tried to stay on the limit. Piers didn’t think about going off, it didn’t 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’m 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’d 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’ll 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.

Did you feel you had that ability?

Pike: Well, I probably didn’t have the personality. Some drivers adapt better when they’re in the car and it’s a bit like playing any sort of sport. Some people cope with the stress of what’s happening better than others. I probably didn’t cope with the pressure as well as other people. I was always very tense. I had the benefit because I’d 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.

After Formula 2 in 1969, you went F5000 racing.

Pike: Ralph Broad rang me and he had a Leda that Chris Craft was driving and for some reason they couldn’t 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’d go to some circuit you’ve never seen before, you’re in a car you’ve never driven before and off you go. Sometimes on very difficult circuits that are quite long, so it’s difficult to do much in terms of performance.

Then, after the 1970 season, you retired?

Pike: I just stopped. Morris Nunn rang me up and asked if I would drive his new car, the Ensign, but I didn’t want to anymore. I think that’s what you do, at some point you stop and that’s it. I had no real desire to sort of keep going on and on. It’s much easier to stop and walk away from it. I was married and had two children and I didn’t see much point. I wasn’t going to get to Formula One and that’s where I wanted to be.

While you didn’t get where you wanted to be, could you say you enjoyed yourself?

Pike: I was very fortunate that I survived and I can look can book and say, “Oh yes. I was fortunate. I survived, I wasn’t killed.” 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’t have. Chris Irwin was the best, I think, and he then had that big accident at the Nürburgring, 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.