Tom Jones – BIO from Formula One Rejects

Bio by Richard Jenkins for Formula One Rjects

Before Formula One

Talk to anoraks in F1 nostalgia circles, and pretty soon you’ll discover that collectively they know just about everything there is to know about F1, its drivers and cars. But there have always been a few mysterious characters who have defied the history books, about whom virtually nothing is known. Perhaps the most infamous of these is Tom Jones, whose fleeting appearance at the 1967 Canadian GP (where he was deemed too slow in practice to start the race) bizarrely seemed to be all that anyone knew about him. Who is this man? When was he born? What motorsport career did he have? Where did he come from? Was he the same man as the Tom Jones from Thunder Bay in Canada, a dominating ice-racer and Canada’s first FIA-graded rally driver, the father of ex-F3000 racer John Jones, and an inductee into the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame? No-one knew the answer. Until now. Having tracked down the man himself in Cleveland, Ohio, F1 Rejects can now exclusively reveal the story of Tom Jones, F1’s mystery man.

Tom Jones was born on April 26th 1943 in Dallas, Texas, the son of a petrol chemical engineer and the youngest of three children. After living in several southern states, the family eventually settled in Cleveland. When he was old enough to drive Tom bought himself an Alfa Romeo Julietta. He attended Ohio State University but didn’t graduate – in the words of the man himself, “I partied around too much.” But motorsport was now becoming much more serious for him and he began competing in club racing. After two years in very minor club events, Tom found the money to buy a Lotus Super 7 in 1964. That year he obtained his national license and travelled around racing at local tracks. At the end of 1964, Jones went into the army, but still indulged in his motoring passion during that time by buying a Ferrari. But it was only after his national service was finished that he concentrated on racing again.

He entered some Formula A races (later Formula 5000), and in one particular event at Mosport he performed brilliantly in wet conditions until he crashed out. At any rate, after that Jones decided he wanted something a little faster, so he contacted the Cooper marque and discovered that they had an old F2 car available, a Cooper T82 which had been used by Jo Bonnier and Jo Siffert for Bonnier’s Ecurie Ecosse Suisse F2 team in 1966. The factory said they could make this car up into a Formula One machine. The old BRM P80 engine was replaced by a Climax V8, and the whole back section of the car was changed. But in fact what Cooper did was to modify the car back to pre-1965 F1 specifications, as opposed to the most up-to-date 1967 specs. So in fact the Climax was a 1.5 litre engine, even though the leading Grand Prix cars of the time were running 3 litre engines. In F1 terms, Jones had at his disposal a car that was two years old, at best.

Formula One

But, fatefully, in mid August 1967, only two weeks after purchasing the car from Cooper, which included no spare parts whatsoever, one of Jones’ friends phoned him to say that there was soon going to be an F1 race at Mosport – the first ever Canadian Grand Prix. Would he be interested? So Tom phoned the people at the track and asked if he could come up and compete. Without hesitation, they said yes and, incredibly, just a single phone call had landed Jones the chance of a lifetime. On cloud nine at the time, he walked into a bar and announced to his friends, “Hey guys, we’re going to Canada and I’m in it!” “Oh yeah, sure!” came the sarcastic reply and he had a tough task convincing them that he was serious and that this was no joke! Eventually he succeeded, and the very next day they all started cleaning up the car, and loaded it onto the trailer. But because it was an open topped trailer, the car was left to bear the full force of the weather and by the time they reached Mosport the car was looking like it had been through a war.

Upon arrival, Jones drove into the paddock and parked the car in a little space between the Brabham and the BRM teams. He was then handed his FIA licence on the spot. On the Friday of the race weekend, Jones ventured for the first time out onto the Mosport circuit for free practice. The car, designated number 41, was working well and, considering that he was on worn tyres they had scrounged from somewhere, Jones set reasonably competitive times during the session, finishing only about a second slower than reject king Al Pease. After the day’s running was over, Jones and his crew received a proposition from a company that was in Mosport demonstrating their suspension alignment system. They offered to check out Jones’ car’s alignment for free. Tom was ecstatic that someone professional was going to check his machine out. The job lasted for about three hours and when it was finished Jones and his crew felt they were easily going to qualify. Back at the motel everyone in Tom’s entourage had trouble sleeping!

The next morning Jones arrived at the circuit early and settled into the cockpit of his Cooper. To check out the car he took the first lap very easily to decide whether or not the car had been improved by the alignment check. It had, and as he passed the pits Jones gave the signal to his crew that he was ready to go for a fast one. Everything was going well, but coming onto the back straight the car completely died, and he was forced to coast to the side of the track. One of Jones’ crew came over to the fence and asked if he could take a look at the car, but the marshal there refused. After qualifying was finished the car was towed back to the pits and the mechanics had it fired up in less than five minutes. What had happened was that the alignment company had disconnected the electrical connections on the back of the Opus modular ignition system and had just loosely put it back together. When Jones started driving, the car’s vibrations had caused the wire to come out and the ignition to cut.

So at that point, Tom’s single lap had recorded a time of 1:51.9, at an average speed (by our calculations) of 127.37 kph or a measly 79.11 mph. In comparison, Jim Clark was on pole with a 1:22.4, a full 29.5 seconds faster. Pease, who would later infamously finish the race 43 laps down, was 16th fastest on a 1:30.1, while Eppie Wietzes did a 1:30.8 and Mike Fisher a 1:31.9. Needless to say, Tom had been slowest of the 19 entrants. On the Sunday morning at the drivers briefing Jones was told that his single qualifying time, set on his half-pace exploratory lap, was not sufficient to qualify. Despite his arguments, the stewards exercised their discretion and he would not be allowed to start. Jones was forced to sit and watch the race from the sidelines. As it turned out, the race was a very wet one which caused more heartbreak for poor old Tom, as he had seen himself as something of a wet weather specialist.

After Formula One

Not surprisingly, Jones was bitterly disappointed about the whole ordeal, and he returned to Cleveland. He subsequently entered the St Jovite round of the SCCA Formula A L&M; Championship, qualifying 12th, but it appears as though he did not start the race. He also took part in the ARRC event at Daytona, where he was only one of four Formula A entries. Of those four he took the ‘pole’ position, but finished 4th out of 4. Later that year he negotiated with Cooper again and purchased the Cooper Maserati T81 that had been Pedro Rodriguez’s car during the 1967 F1 season, which had won in South Africa. But more heartache was to come. During the winter of 1967, Jones received a phone call from the late John Cooper claiming that Tom owed $8,000, an allegation which Jones flatly denied. Cooper then re-possessed the car, leaving Jones nearly bankrupt.

He was thus unable to compete in motorsport for quite a period of time due to lack of finances. He tried in vain to go to Europe, but his wallet would simply not take the strain. It was not until 1973 that Tom competed again in the North American F5000 championship, driving a McLaren M22, and then John Cannon’s old March for a while. The last time he drove in F5000 was in 1978, in some SCCA club racing events. Thanks to Allen Brown, we know Jones also competed sporadically in the Can-Am series, making appearances at Road America and Mid-Ohio in 1977, Mosport in 1978, then showing up at Brainerd and Trois-Rivieres in 1979 and Road Atlanta in 1980, driving cars such as a March 74A Chevrolet and a March 791. Throughout this time Tom was working for a car manufacturing company as a sales rep. But in 1980 the automotive industry took a major cut in its workforce and Jones was one of the casualties. Thereafter he never had the finances to go racing.

He has since started his own business in Cleveland, welding and fabricating metals. Sadly, he lost his mother recently, but conversely with his financial situation now looking much rosier, he hopes to go out vintage racing next year with his March F5000 car. He says that his aim is to one day run a team in Champ Cars, although at the moment this seems a distant dream. In the meantime, what of the Cooper T82 Jones used at Mosport in 1967? The car, chassis F2/2/66, was subsequently painstakingly restored by Englishman Paul Busby (whom we must thank as the missing link that helped us to find Tom!) and re-united with its original ‘screamer’ 1000cc BRM engine. Busby has since used the car in HGPCA and HSCC historic races, including at the 1999 Coys International Historic Festival.

CAREER SUMMARY

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about Tom Jones