Ian Hugh Gordon Ashley (born 26 October 1947 in Wuppertal, Germany) is a British racing driver who raced in Formula One for the Token, Williams, BRM and Hesketh teams. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Ian Ashley raced for Token, Williams, BRM and Hesketh in F1 though was involved in two serious crashes on circuits that were no longer used by F1 soon after his accidents, with the second one effectively ending his F1 career. During his racing he acquired the nickname ‘Crashley’, which came about while he was racing with James Hunt. They were friendly rivals and he told how they “moved through the ranks together. Neither of us had many races under our belts by the time we arrived in Formula Three, which was a major category back then. We did a lot of learning in public and there were one or two incidents. It was all part of our education. We were both very young, blisteringly fast and stuck out like sore thumbs. Mike Ticehurst, a mutual friend, coined us ‘Crashley ’n’ Shunt’ and it stuck.” However, in fairness to Ian, he “drove many terrible cars, or hopped into something without any prior testing, and things broke. As such, it wasn’t always my fault!”
Born Ian (Hugh Gordon) Ashley in 1947 in Wuppertal, West Germany, while his father was there as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, he later lived in Lincoln and when he started racing he had no great ambition to be a big-time driver and simply wanted to race. After karting in 1964 he attended the Jim Russell racing school, promptly proving his doubting father wrong by claiming pole position, and then taking victory, in his first school race. He then obtained an Austin Healy Sprite and competing in club racing with it won in a handicap race at Mallory Park. In 1967 he moved into F3 with an Ashhlowe Racing Lola and Merlyn, with his best results being second at Albi, third at Avus and fourth at Hameenlinna, and his reputation as a ‘press on’ racer in the Merlyn led to the opportunity of a drive for the following year with the Chequered Flag team.
Chequered Flag Team boss Graham Warner and his wife Shirley were very supportive and had received backing from Triang, to run a pair of F3 McLarens on a semi works basis. The cars appeared with Scalextric logos, a few months before the Gold Leaf colours appeared on the Grand Prix Lotus car. He was teamed with Mike Walker and took seventh at Pau plus had twelfth place finishes at Monthlery and Karlskoga. While at Barcelona, his team mate started on pole and led for ten laps before his engine seized and he spun off though poor Ian’s engine wouldn’t start so he didn’t qualify. Sadly, the next race at Hockenheim saw Jim Clark’s fatal crash and Ian had shared the breakfast table that morning with him. His car suffered engine problems at Oulton Park’s BRSCC Trophy and wouldn’t start though team mate Walker went on to win the race. At Rouen for the Coupe de Vitesse, he suffered a major accident, with Walker an observer as Ian flew past him and went off at a right hand bend. Ian himself recalled “That was the second lap of practice and my second ever lap of the circuit. I came past the pits with a jammed throttle, the return spring having broken.” In the Zandvoort Trophy, he ran in an impressive sixth place for most of the race, with Autosport magazine reporting him “driving the race of his life. Some way past the halfway stage, he noticed the handling was somewhat odd and put it down to his driving, but little did he know he had run over a piece of debris and a tyre was slowly deflating.” However he kept going for another six laps and brought the car home in seventh place. At the Guards International Trophy race at Oulton Park he took a sixth place finish but his last race for them came at Brands Hatch in September, though he retired due to an oil leak, and the team eventually disbanded.
1969 started in Formula Ford with an Alexis and there were two wins, a second and two third places at Brands Hatch, a victory and second place at Croft, but after taking second and third at Oulton Park and Silverstone the team withdrew the car. He switched to a Lotus 61 and finished sixth overall in the Les Leston Championship plus he also drove a Kitchener K3 in F5000 and took a Libre win at Brands Hatch in a Lotus 59B. The following year saw him with a works Lotus drive for the Brazilian Formula Ford series, which he described as a great adventure. He took a win and second place at Curitiba, second and third at Sao Paulo, third and forth at Fontalenza, fourth and fifth at Rio, and fourth and sixth at Jacapegua in a Lotus 61 and finish second in the series behind Emerson Fittipaldi. He competed in F3 on his return to England and had a second place with a Chevron at the International Trophy support race plus took victory in a Snetterton Libre race in a March. In 1971, he had eighth place finishes in F5000 with a Lola T190 at Brands Hatch and Hockenheim plus a podium placing with an F3 Lotus 59 at Brands Hatch. There was also a race at Brands Hatch in an F3 EMC while October that year saw his first participation in Formula 1, in a World Championship Victory Race at Brands Hatch, finishing eighteenth in a Lola T190-Chevrolet.
Concentrating on F5000 for 1972 with a Lola T190 and T191 his best results were two second in class place finishes at Brands Hatch (one in the John Player Trophy) plus fourth at Silverstone and he finished tenth in the Championship. There were also drives in a Royale RP11 in F3 and he finished third at Brands Hatch and twelfth in the British GP support race. He contested two non-championship F1 races with the WMG Marketing sponsored Lola, finishing eighth in the International Gold Cup at Oulton Park and thirteenth in the John Player Challenge Trophy at Brands Hatch. After showing promise in 1972, 1973 brought his first F5000 victory at the Jyllandsring and he also raced his Lola T330 at Mugello (unfortunately spinning out after starting on pole), the Vanwall Trophy at Silverstone, the Dublin GP at Mondello and had a fifth place in Oulton Park’s Gold Cup. Racing the Henley Forklift sponsored Lola in two F1 non-championship races, he finished tenth in the Race of Champions though he crashed during the BRDC International Trophy.
He made his Grand Prix debut in 1974 though had more success in F5000, winning at Thruxton and in the Oulton Park Gold Cup, plus had second and third at Mallory Park, second, third and fourth at Brands Hatch, third at Oulton Park and fourth at Silverstone, to finish third in the points behind Bob Evans and Peter Gethin. Repeating his two F1 non-championship races, he was eighth in Brands Hatch’s Race of Champions though retired from the BRDC International Trophy race at Silverstone. August that year saw his debut in the World Championship when he drove the Token RJ02-Cosworth in the German GP at the Nurburgring. After starting twentieth he finished fourteenth while at the following race in Austria he finished twelfth though wasn’t classified. September saw a change of teams for the two North America races and he drove Chequered Flag’s Brabham BT42-Cosworth though failed to qualify at Mosport and Watkins Glen. Describing the events leading up to his first race, after finishing the F5000 race at Brands Hatch, he told how “someone from Token approached my friend/manager Mike Smith about a possible drive in the RJ02 for the German Grand Prix. Following a quick chat with Graham Warner and Richard Oaten, who were involved financially, I agreed to do it so long as I could test beforehand. The Tuesday before the race, I did maybe 12 laps at Goodwood. At the Nürburgring, the right-front tyre deflated at the bottom of the Foxhole during first practice. In second practice, a mechanic mistakenly installed the wrong top gear so, instead of having 11,000rpm, I had only 9000. I qualified on the back row alongside Derek Bell in his Surtees but just before the warm-up lap, (the car’s designer) Ray Jessop told me to lift off at the Foxhole, what with all the extra race fuel on board. I did just that but the right-front tyre blew again anyway at precisely the same spot. I continued for another 10 miles, arriving at the pits minus the tyre and the right-front wing. Ray was concerned that vibrations may have cracked the top wishbone so he changed it in record time, eyeballing the camber and toe-in settings. There was no replacement wing so they simply taped up the wing support to keep it in place, increased the left-front wing and reduced the rear wing. Ray then wished me luck.” After finishing fourteenth, despite another identical puncture, at the following race, the Austrian GP at the Osterreichring, he recalls “I was doing 180mph-plus at the end of the pit straight heading into the flat-out right-hander at the time. In the race, a left-front tyre began bubbling: the front wings were flexing at high speed and this reduced grip, which overheated the inside tread. Ray then called me in for a two-minute pitstop. Then my left-rear wheel came loose. In I came again. While they replaced it, the engine began to overheat. They thought the car was on fire and hauled me out, only to realise that it was just steam. I clambered back in and off I went.” Unknown to him, a deal had been to purchase a Brabham BT42 but he had been invited to test for John Surtees at Goodwood. Despite only getting out on the track in late afternoon and completing one lap before suffering engine problems he was offered the seat for the rest of the season, at Monza, Mosport and Watkins Glen. However, he faced a dilemma as he was contracted for F5000, plus realised the Brabham had been bought to keep him in F1 (and was potentially a good car) so declined the Surtees offer. He failed to qualify in Canada and the USA but in a macabre twist, Helmuth Koinigg, who raced the Surtees at Watkins Glen, was killed in a grisly accident.
In 1975, he drove for Richard Oaten in European F5000, scoring victories at Brands Hatch and Thruxton (actually crossing the line with a blown engine) and finished fourth in the final standings, behind Teddy Pilette, Peter Gethin and Guy Edwards. He retired due to an accident in the Race of Champions but had a huge accident in qualifying for the German GP when his Williams crashed and he broke his ankle. The injury meant he was unable to take up an offer from Team Lotus to replace Jacky Ickx for the final five races that year. He returned the following year with Stanley BRM, driving their BRM P201B in the season-opening Brazilian GP though retired after two laps due to a broken oil pump and frustratingly the team withdrew after this race. In 1977 he entered six rounds of the British F3 Championship with a Lola T570 and late in the season joined Hesketh Racing, though failed to qualify their Hesketh 308E in Austria, Netherlands and Italy. He raced in America at Watkins Glen and finished seventeenth though everything came to a halt when he was seriously injured during practice at Mosport for the Canadian GP when his Hesketh flipped while cresting one of the bumps and somersaulted over the barriers and into a television tower. Describing the crash, he recalled “Going over the hump at the end of the back straight, the nose section collapsed. The 308E and I did two-and-a-half backward somersaults 30ft in the air, flying over the Armco before demolishing an unmanned TV platform. The car then buried itself 10 inches into the ground, which crushed my ankles. When I came to, I was full of morphine. It took them 45 minutes to cut me out, the gear lever had gone through and shattered my wrist, and my ankles were crushed up to my knees-my right one was in 13 pieces and my left one in 5. This was a clean break in the left.
Emerson, his personal surgeon, Jochen Mass and the mechanics were cutting me out with small hacksaw blades, with Mike Wilds behind me gripping a plasma bag.” They didn’t know whether I had broken my neck, and put this thing around my neck, and in Toronto, at Sunnybrook (the teaching hospital) they had just had bought this helicopter on the Monday, and 45 minutes later it arrived and it whisked me off to hospital. They weren’t sure about any of my limbs as they had all gone blue, and that was pretty much that.”
This saw the end of his F1 career as although he came back to race the following April for the Long Beach GP, the medical personnel said he was still too weak and he wasn’t allowed to race. He subsequently trained to become a pilot of executive jets in America (following in his father’s footsteps as he had gone on to become the deputy chief test pilot on Concorde) and on one occasion Ian’s passenger was an incredulous Jackie Stewart, who asked him where the real pilot was.
Some eight years later, after encouragement from Emerson Fittipaldi, he returned to the cockpit in CART and drove Tom Hess Racing’s Lola-Cosworth to eighteenth place at Miami. He was entered for the 1986 Indy 500 but the car did not appear on track though he did make three CART starts with Dick Simon Racing, at Toronto, Mid-Ohio and Elkhart Lake, with his best result a ninth place at Mid-Ohio. He also made an American Racing Series (Indy Lights) start at Pocono Raceway and finished sixth and there was a further CART appearance in 1987, again in Miami, but retired with drivetrain trouble. At the end of 1987, he was persuaded to race a friend’s motorcycle at a wet club meeting and won the race and then went on to compete across the USA the following year and in 1989. He also drove in several Barber-Saab Series races during 1989, with his best results being fifth place finishes at Lime Rock and Elkhart Lake, while 1990 saw a move into Sidecar racing there.
He also did some flying during this period, plus flew helicopters, and back in the UK he entered the British Touring Car Championship in 1993 with Tamchester Team Maxted and Colin Davis Racing. Racing a Vauxhall Cavalier GSi, a ninth place was his best result though he took seventh in the end of season TOCA Shoot-out at Donington Park and finished third in the TOCA Challenge for privateers, after leading early in the year.
He took up flying again after this, becoming chief pilot of a Learjet charter outfit, plus raced 750 Superbikes in America in 1996 and contested 1998’s World Sidecar Championship. He went on to become involved in the TVR Tuscan Challenge and Lotus Sport Elise Cup and in 2003 he was back in sidecar racing, contesting the MRO Supersidecar Championship. He became a Racing Instructor and an enthusiastic racer in Historics and November 2009 saw him back in Formula Ford for the first time in over 40 years driving an Elden MK8 in the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone. Also that year, at the Silverstone Classic meeting, he took a podium in his LDS Alfa Romeo in the Jack Brabham Trophy for pre-1966 Grand Prix cars. Although F1 was denied him, Ian declared “I’m still here and having a wonderful time racing. Right now, I’m probably enjoying it more than I did in the ’70s.”
Inerview with Ian Ashley – from 
