Dave Clapham

Dave Clapham passed away last week 22 October 2005 after a long illness. He was 74.

Dave was a driving force behind the resurgence of motorsport in South Africa in the late 1950's and early 1960's as both an organiser and competitor. He was involved in the sport in various administrative capacities until recently.

He was also an excellent motor racing journalist and presented an excellent column in one of the newspapers of the era under the psuedonym "Twin Choke".

He raced Formula Vees, Formula Fords and saloons.

While I do not have my records with me I recall him racing in the SA Championship circa 1963-1967 in an LDS Climax, the ex Lupini Cooper T51 Maserati and later running a Lotus 21 with the Maserati engine.
These cars were entered by Team Lawson (wonderful sponsors of SA motorsport - for whom he worked) but were very unreliable. The Lotus 21 was the ex Ernest Pieterse car which during 1964 ran under the Lawson banner.

I remember seeing Dave have a spectacular "spin off" during the 1964 Rand GP when he was battling with the handling of the Cooper Maserati.

His exploits in the Rand Nine Hours included drives in Volvos and the rotary Mazda M10A's if I am not mistaken.

Sorry to hear that. I believe he also supplied some of the reports of the South African Drivers Championship F1/F5000 races to Autosport magazine during the early 1970s - a valuable resource to those of us who have needed to research these races from 'foreign' parts. A sad loss...

Very sorry to hear this. I was an avid reader of Dave Clapham's reports whenever I saw them. And I understand he was a good guy...

DCN