John Clark

Record type: Motorsport Biographies

Biography: Mount: Senior – Guzzi.

Age 27, John Clark is a draughtsman from Portsmouth, Hants.

The 1953 Junior was his first International T.T. race, but he had already figured conspicuously in the Clubman’s series. In the 1950 Junior Clubman’s he was fifth on the first two laps, and then pulled up into fourth place, which he held to the end, averaging 71.97 m.p.h. on his Douglas.

In the 1952 Senior Clubman’s, Norton mounted, he had a race-long scrap with D. K. Farrant on a similar machine. What made it more exciting was that they were Nos. 5 and 6, and so had started at the same time. Clark led Farrant by two seconds on each of the first two laps, and by four seconds in the third. On the fourth lap, however, he drew away and came home 19.4 seconds ahead, averaging 81.92 m.p.h., and finishing only 42.6 seconds behind the winner, B. J. Hargreaves (Triumph).

John entered for the 1952 Manx Grand Prix, but was a non-starter in both events. He was 11th in his first Junior T.T., in which he rode an A.J.S., and won a Silver Replica. In the Senior race he dropped out on the fifth lap.

Again A.J.S. – mounted, he was sixth, at 86.77 m.p.h., in the 1954 Junior; in the Senior, however, he skidded at the start of the race and dropped the model. He recovered and carried on, but due to the delay and damage he could do no better than 39th place.

The following year he was a member of the A.M.C team and rode with success at Aberdare, in the Ulster Grand Prix, and elsewhere, though he was out of luck in the Isle of Man.

So far as John is concerned ill-luck is becoming synonymous with the T.T. races, for his 1956 rides in both events were curtailed. During his fifth lap in the Junior, while lying well up the leader-board he had a brush with the sandbags at Kirk Michael and retired. Lap 5 was again John’s undoing, in the Senior and he retired at Quarter Bridge.
(TT Special, 5 June 1957, p.7.)

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