Innes Ireland

Ireland was born on 12 June 1930 in Mytholmroyd, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, the son of a Scottish veterinary surgeon. His family returned to Kirkcudbright, Scotland during his youth, and he trained as an engineer with Rolls-Royce, first in Glasgow and later in London. Commissioned as a lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers, he served with the Parachute Regiment in the Suez Canal Zone during 1953 and 1954.

Ireland began racing a Riley 9 in 1954. His first year of nationally competitive events was 1957,[2] by which time he was running a small engineering firm in Surrey. Success in sports car racing saw him make his Formula One debut for Team Lotus in 1959. In 1960 he won three non-championship Formula One races and finished fourth in the World Drivers Championship. Badly injured in the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix, Ireland recovered to win the Solitude Grand Prix and Flugplatzrennen races, then finished the season with a victory in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.

Despite these successes, he was sacked at the end of the season, team boss Colin Chapman considering Jim Clark a better bet.[3] Despite occasional successes, Ireland never again had a car to match his talent, and he was encouraged by Bill France, founder of NASCAR, to participate in the 1967 Daytona 500, one of the last races of his career, where the V8 engine of his Dodge exploded outside the stands.

He worked as a journalist for ESPN for several F1 races in the late 1980s as well as the American Road & Track magazine, Autocar magazine, and skippering fishing trawlers in the North Atlantic. Towards the end of his life, he was elected president of the British Racing Drivers' Club, which post he still held at the time of his death from cancer on 22 October 1993, at Reading, Berkshire, England.

A talented writer, Ireland produced a classic autobiography, All Arms and Elbows (ISBN 0-85184-050-7). Marathon in the Dust, published in 1970 is Ireland's account of the gruelling 1968 Daily Expres London-Sydney Marathon which Innes completed with 2 friends in a Mercedes Benz 280 SE.

On 30 October 1954 Ireland married Scarborough schoolteacher Norma Thomas. They had two daughters before divorcing in 1967. He then married Edna Humphries also in 1967. Ireland married his third wife Jean Mander (née Howarth), a former fashion model, on 11 June 1993 at Newbury register office. Jean had been engaged to Mike Hawthorn at the time of Hawthorn's death in 1959. Ireland also had a son who died in 1992.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Innes Ireland.

• An Innes Ireland fan site at the Wayback Machine (archived 26 October 2009)
• Information about Innes Ireland