Video: The untold story of Indy ’65

Fifty years ago – on May 31, 1965 – Memorial Day in the USA – Jim Clark secured the first half of his historic achievement with Team Lotus. In becoming the first "Foreigner" to win at Indy since Dario Resta in 1916 – and the first to win in a rear-engined car – Clark set the scene for a double-whammy that will never be repeated.

Clark would go on to secure the F1 World Championship that same year with a stunning series of wins but in May, 50 years ago, all his focus was on Indy – on rocking the establishment and changing the way the Americans went racing.

Here, for the first time, Jim Clark's mechanic for the month of May – Australia's Jim Smith – looks back at that epic time. A marine engineer who captured the attention of Colin Chapman while he was back-packing in the UK, Jim is a no-nonsense Aussie who perfectly complemented the brilliance of Clark and Chapman. He remained a friend of Jim's long after he left Team Lotus and today resides in Sydney, where we spoke.