Jim Crawford is Fife’s most famous sportsman – so why haven’t you heard of him?
The Formula 1 and Indianapolis 500 racing driver smashed records, bones and cars during his time on the tracks in the 1980s and ‘90s.
After a brutal 220mph crash into a concrete wall at the 1987 Indy 500, Jim faced losing his legs, but managed to recover and continue racing for several more years, despite walking with a cane for the rest of his life.
Competing in America, Canada, Britain and even India, he charmed spectators and rivals the world over with his “dry wit”, humble nature and indisputable talent behind the wheel.
But the Dunfermline-born daredevil was largely forgotten by his hometown, and since his death at just 54 years old in 2002, Jim’s story has gone untold.
Now, thanks to biographer and fellow Fifer Kevin Guthrie, Jim’s legacy will be brought back to the place of his birth, with an exhibition on his life and career taking place this month in Dunfermline’s Carnegie Library and Galleries.
Lifelong fascination with Fife racer Jim Crawford
“Jim is the most famous sportsman from Dunfermline, but no one here’s heard of him,” says Kevin incredulously.
Kevin fell in love with racing as a kid growing up in Crossgates, and he when first caught sight of his hero Jim zooming round the track on television, he was intrigued to see that the driver hailed from his area.
“I’m a huge racing fan, from when I was a kid,” he recalls.
“I used to watch the Indy 500 every year in America. They’ll zoom in on a driver, and have his name and his hometown, and Jim’s came up with ‘Dunfermline, Scotland’, and I thought: Who the hell is that?
“It was difficult to find out in those days, because it was pre-internet, so I used to get a monthly racing magazine, Autosport. But there was only ever tiny little bits once a year about him.
“Until I started researching the book, I didn’t know much about him.”
Starting his research in Dunfermline “with no luck”, Kevin found himself at a dead end until he was tipped off that Jim’s parents had moved from Rosyth to Bolton when he was just four years old.
“I wrote a letter to the newspaper in Bolton, and in one day I got about 20 replies – including his friends and his sister Jean,” reveals Kevin, who had never written a book before embarking on Jim’s biography ten years ago.
“His ex-girlfriend Sue Deakin spoke to me too, and said Jim was fantastic company.
“I never got to meet him myself, but it’s strange – I feel like I know him now.
“When I was talking to his sister, she said: ‘You probably know more about my brother than I do’. And she’s probably right.”
Jim ‘had a propensity for wrecking cars’
Growing up as part of a “very normal family” in Bolton, Jim had no designs on driving race cars. In fact, Kevin reveals, his first love was sailing.
“Bizarrely, he was right into sailing, and he decided it was too expensive – so he took up motor racing instead!” he laughs.
“He borrowed a Mini, and he did some rallies in it. That particular one ended its days against a tree on a rally.”
Indeed, Kevin says Jim “had a propensity for wrecking cars”, and not just on the tracks.
“I spoke to his brother-in-law,” recalls Kevin. “And he said: ‘I got this brand new Volvo estate, and Jim came round the very next day asking to borrow it, he had to pick an engine up.
“He brought it back the next day and there was steam coming out of it. He’d been to the south of France to pick up the engine!’
“He borrowed his dad’s car when he was a teenager, and when he handed it back, it turned out he’d actually entered and done a rally in it that his dad didn’t know about,” he continues.
“He took a loan of his friend’s MG when he was on holiday, blew up the engine. Borrowed another friend’s car and crashed it down a ravine!”
Friends with deep pockets helped Jim Crawford
Despite his expensive hobbies, Jim was a young man with “talent but no money” until he befriended the well-to-do Choularton brothers, one of whom – Stephen – was a racing enthusiast.
“Jim used to be Stephen’s mechanic when he was racing,” explains Kevin. “As a reward at the end of the season, Steve said to Jim: ‘Right, you can have a race in the car’. And Jim almost won it! It was the first time he’d ever been on a circuit.
“A year and a half later he was signed by Lotus for F1. It was a meteoric rise, but Jim never had any money – it was always other people funding him.
“I think that’s probably what he was proudest of, he was always paid to drive. He never had to pay to do it.”
Raw talent aside, Kevin admires Jim for his mettle, though confesses he often wonders if the racer’s antics were born of “bravery or stupidity”.
“I don’t know whether it was bravery or stupidity, but he had some enormous accidents that he was lucky to walk away from,” he says.
“He came very close to losing his legs, but he just kept going back for more.
“I think it was the thrill of the sport that kept him coming back, he wasn’t in it for the money.”
Jim Crawford had a screw loose during Indy 500 – literally
Following Jim’s “big shunt” at the Indy 500, after which he had to have months of gruelling surgeries on his shattered legs, he shocked the circuit when he returned the following year.
“His friends went to visit him in America, and they said: ‘What’re your plans?’ and he said ‘I’m going to do Indy next year’,” narrates Kevin.
“They said: ‘Are you joking? You can’t walk!’ And Jim replied: ‘That’s not really the point of a motor race’.”
It was during that comeback race – which he started out leading but ultimately lost – that he ended up spending a whopping six minutes at pit stops with multiple mishaps, including a screw coming loose in his patched-up legs.
“One of the mechanics said he had to go down into the cockpit during a pitstop and screw it back in,” Kevin chuckles.
Never one to sell himself or attract sponsors, Kevin says Jim was known for being humble to a fault.
Even when his injuries made it so he had to walk with a cane for the rest of his life, he would shy away from having the people around him accommodate his limited mobility.
“The year after he shattered both his legs, Jim had two canes to walk with,” he explains.
“So the team had given him a golf buggy to scoot up and down the pit lane. But he appeared at the pit one day and walked the entire length of it with these two canes, and was asked ‘Where’s your buggy?’
“And he says: ‘Oh there was two ladies sitting on it, I didn’t want to ask them to move’.”
Dunfermline driver was loved ‘even by his rivals’
But although gentlemanly, there was a wild side to Jim which seemed to endear him to everyone, even his competitors.
“He enjoyed life. He enjoyed a drink,” says Kevin.
“It’s unfathomable these days, but when he signed for Lotus, he was sponsored by John Player Special cigarettes, and part of his contract was a free supply of cigarettes. You would not get that in F1 today!
“He was extremely comical, and universally loved, even by his rivals, because I spoke to a lot of his rivals.
“Some of the big Indy guys – Bobby Rahal, Danny Sullivan – they all had huge respect for him.”
After his accident, Jim continued to race, staying in America for the latter half of his life.
He left the racing scene after 1995, having had underwhelming Indy 500 races that year and the previous one, and retired to his home in Florida, where he picked up his first love again – sailing.
He bought a motorboat called Desafinado (Portuguese for ‘out of tune’) and lived out his final years near the water.
His early death in 2002 was due to kidney failure, and he left behind his second wife, Annie, and his children from his first marriage, Jeff and Emily – to whom Kevin’s book is dedicated.
“The official thing was kidney failure, but it’s a bit more complicated than that,” says Kevin sadly.
“He had multiple surgeries after his accident, in his legs. And one of them was contaminated, and he got hepatitis.
“He was in a lot of pain for the rest of his life, and his friends all say he never moaned about it, but he did drink a lot after that.”
Jacket gave Emily a piece of her late dad
For Kevin, one of the most special things about writing Jim’s biography was getting to connect with those he left behind – especially Jim’s daughter Emily, who was only nine years old when her father passed away.
“Last year she contacted me,” says Kevin. “She was delighted because I managed to return one of her dad’s jackets to her.
“I had bought his race suit at an auction from when he broke the lap record at Indy, which is actually in the museum at Dunfermline. And his team jacket came with it.
“She didn’t really have any stuff so I said: ‘Oh I’ve got a jacket hanging in my wardrobe!’ and I sent it across to her.”
And writing the book has shown Kevin just how many lives that one boy from Dunfermline touched – even reaching the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame.
“Jim’s ex-girlfriend said to me : ‘When we went to Canada, we used to stay with this country musician. I’m sure his name was Good.’ And I couldn’t find anything to do with this for a year or so,” Kevin recalls.
“And then I heard this Canadian band called the Good Brothers. So I managed to find their number on their website and this guy, Brian Good, answers.
“I said: ‘This is a really strange enquiry, but did you ever know a racing driver called Jim Crawford?’ And he says: ‘Jim! Yeah! I still use one of his crash helmets when I’m snowmobiling!’”
Minus that one very loved jacket and a well-used helmet, many of Jim’s possessions and vintage photos of him are on display in the racer’s hometown this month, courtesy of Kevin, who has collected the artefacts over the years in homage to his fellow Fifer.
And to celebrate the release of his biography and the exhibition, Kevin will give a talk at the Carnegie Library and Galleries on October 22.
“Jim was just a fabulous character,” smiles Kevin.
“You don’t really get them like him anymore.”
Jim Crawford: Dunfermline’s Forgotten Racing Hero will run at the Carnegie Library and Galleries until October 31. For tickets and more information about biographer Kevin Guthrie’s talk, visit The List online.
Jim Crawford: Lessons In Courage by Kevin Guthrie, RRP £29.99, is available for purchase now.
