Discover the momentous motor sporting events that took place this weekend in history ………..

~28 December~

1963: Jim Clark won the South African Grand Prix at East London driving a Lotus 25. Winner of the Drivers World Championship in 1963 and 1965, The Times placed the Scot at the top of a list of the greatest Formula One drivers ever in a 2009 poll. Clark was killed in a Formula Two motor-racing accident at Hockenheim in Germany in 1968. At the time of his death, he had won more Grand Prix races (25) and achieved more Grand Prix pole positions (33) than any other driver.
1983: Eugene Chaboud (76), racing driver from France who participated in three Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, scoring one championship point, died. He also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One race.

~29 December~

1962: British driver Graham Hill (cover image)won his first World Drivers Championship when he drove his BRM to victory in the South African Grand Prix at East London. Jim Clark had led the race until 20 laps from the finish, when an oil leak forced him to retire. Had this not occurred and had Clark finished the race in first, the Scot would have been crowned world champion instead of Hill.
1962: The LDS made its Formula 1 debut in the South African Grand Prix in East London, but the car designed and driven by Doug NYGoodHealth Serrurier retired with a radiator leak. LDS name was given to various single seater racing specials built for the South African Formula One Championship. The “specials” were built by Louis Douglas Serrurier, hence the name. The Mark 1 and Mark 2 models were based on Cooper designs, whilst the Mark 3 was based on the Brabham BT11. Mark 1 and Mark 2 models (1962–1965) used Alfa Romeo 1.5-litre straight-4 engines. A total of eight LDS cars participated in five World Championship Grands Prix. They did not score any World Championship points.
1988: Mike Beuttler (48), British Formula One driver who raced privately entered March cars, died of complications resulting from AIDS. He was a talented Formula Three graduate from the late 1960s, who then graduated to Formula Two and then to Formula One in 1971. The finance for the team came from a group of stockbroker friends from whom the team took its name – at first Clarke-Mordaunt-Guthrie Racing, and in 1973 it became Clarke-Mordaunt-Guthrie-Durlacher Racing. He raced on one occasion, at the 1971 Canadian Grand Prix, for the works March team. Beuttler’s best result was a seventh place in the 1973 Spanish Grand Prix.
2003: Cal Rayborn II, back-to-back winner of the Daytona 200 in 1968 and ’69, died after crashing his bike during a race in New Zealand.