The Wee Scot Bastard

This bit about Jackie Stewart was originally posted in my Live Journal 4/7/05, though as with the Lauda piece it has been overhauled and added on to.

The next driver I am going to speak of is John Young Stewart, though he is known to most of the world as Jackie Stewart, THE* Flying Scot (World Champion 1969, 1971, & 1973)

Telling Emo Fittipaldi that he looks like a Goddamn dirty ape! Circa 1973

This guy is TINY and he is really really Scottish!

Not only is he very small and Scottish, he also knows he's so fucking cool that he can wear funny pants in public and not catch shit about it. He is so cool in fact that after he was knighted he saw fit to start carrying a scepter around with him and once he started carrying his scepter a group of mysterious kilted Scots started following him around everywhere he went and so did a tiny dog for some reason. Not many people achieve this level of coolness in their lives. Then again, many don't end up winning three world drivers championships either. But Jackie Stewart. He's not like other people, not even like other Scots.

Jackie could drive like a motherfucker and shoot skeet like nobody's business. He suffers from severe dyslexia and revolutionized safety in F1. The man has such a nose for business that he was made an honorary Jew in 1989, and in 2001 was Knighted for his contributions to British motor sport.

Jackie Stewart was born in the one of the world's most ridiculously named towns, Dumbartonshire, Scotland way the hell back in 1939. His father, a local garage owner was originally furious with his wife when he first saw his new son Jackie, as he thought his wife had been fucking the Irish milkman, cos his newborn looked exactly like a fucking Leprechaun, and everybody knows leprechaun's aren't Scottish.

Initially Jackie thought, along with his schoolmaster's that he was stupid. Young Jackie was miserable at academics and was often found crying himself to sleep at night due to his inability to read "Little Bo Peep".

Being terrible at grammar and math really infuriated the small lad, for he knew he was no dummy... but there was no way to prove the situation otherwise. If he tried telling anybody he was really quite smart, they'd call him a liar upon seeing the marks he received at school! Poor Jackie just didn't know what to do!

In the early 1950's he found a way to vent some of his frustration with school. He started shooting skeet. No... he didn't discover the wonders of masturbation (well, maybe he did, but not at the same time. Then again, who the hell am I to know? Perhaps that first shot of the gun caused the pistol in his pants to fire off as well?)

So let me clarify this: He took out his academic aggression via guns, ya know, shooting at things. With live ammunition. Namely clay pigeons. Though it was rumored he was the one responsible for taking out the lovable town wino, Doddington, in the summer of 1954. However, there was never sufficient evidence to back this theory up so he never got in any trouble. While his main focus was skeet-pigeon shooting, I'm quite sure he was also well versed at the other form of skeet shooting too. I mean what young man isn't?

He would also work in his fathers garage, learning that he possessed some mechanical ability as well. His older brother had bought a sports car and started racing. Eventually he took Jackie out to an event he was in and let him tool around in the vehicle for a bit... and even though he didn't have his gun with him, he started to shooting skeet.

That's what started it all.


Through out the late 50's Stewart's life revolved around entering clay pigeon tournaments and when he could, racing under an assumed name (so his mum wouldn't find out) He was the most decorated shooter in the land (literally) and was poised to go to the 1960 Olympics representing Scotland's skills with firearms.

Then tragedy struck... actually, he just totally fucking botched his Olympic audition. Shit. Everybody has a bad weekend from time to time. His just came at the worst possible moment. Feeling pretty defeated, he put his gun away and as though he had a death wish, started racing full time, always driving like he stole it!!

I won't bore y'all with his rapid rise through the nursery formula, let's just say that he was known as "Dominatrix Jack" and he was feared through out Europe being he had no fear. Instead of donning a Nomex Fireproof suit, his racing suit was made entirely of leather. When he won a race, instead of flying his national colors (which was done by hiding a flag in the cockpit of the car during the race, in case you won) he would wave around a leather whip brandishing 4.5 inch nails.

In only a space of 5 years he went from zero to hero!! His failure in shooting only drove his racing more and it only took him five years to graduate to F1 when he started driving for the BRM F1 team. While he only won two grand prix's in his three years with the team he was on the podium often enough to establish himself as a rising... clay pigeon.

In 1968 Ken Tyrell, his old boss from the Formula 3 series decided to start entering cars in F1 races and hired Jackie as they'd achieved quite favorable results in F3 together. The partnership of these two was like that of Colin Chapman (owner of Lotus F1) & Jimmy Clark (Lotus driver). While racing for Tyrell in the six seasons that he did in F1, of the 99 GP's Stewart contested in over his career, 25 of his 27 wins came while driving Tyrell machinery. Good driver, good car.

"On the opening lap of the '66 Belgian GP his BRM aquaplaned off the Masta Straight, bounced off a house and landed in the outside basement of a woodcutter's cottage. He was trapped in the car, his ribs and shoulder broken, with the petrol pumps merrily decanting five-star onto his crotch. Understandably, it held his attention. This was why the wee Scot wanted to make safety a bigger issue in F1, due to his own experience of how unsafe it was."

Stewart kicked a lot of ass and then quit at the height of his driving prowess. Something many couldn't do. But he didn't want to die. See, your chances of dying in Jackie's day as an F1 driver were much greater than they are today considering that if you were a F1 driver between 1965 and 1970 (racing for 5 years) your chances of death were 2 out of 3. He'd had that big shunt in Belgium in 1966 that got him thinking about safety, then a few years later whilst lying upside down, trapped in his car in a ditch at the Nurburgring in Germany in 1969, with gasoline leaking all the fuck over the place... just waiting to be ignited by some indignant German natives cigarette butt he decided that there still wasn't enough being done on the safety side of things in F1. While quietly awaiting death he figured if he were to live through this ordeal that he was going to lead the crusade to change this. And he did.

Jackie Stewart is the man responsible for introducing, get this, seat belts (not the five point seat belts used today, just seat belts over the waist) and full faced helmets to Formula One, along with a traveling medical unit that would follow the GP's around Europe. He pushed for larger run off areas at dangerous corners. Up until that point you wore open faced helmets and didn't wear a seat belt. If you crashed you were usually at the mercy of the spectators (if your crash didn't take out 10 or 15 of them, which happened often enough) or other drivers to get you freed.

The changes he brought about were really tremendous and badly needed... though not everybody was happy about it, because some people are simply stupid assholes. "There was criticism from the media, and even some drivers. It was said I was trying to remove the romance of the sport. The media said I had no guts, but not many of these critics had ever crashed at 150 miles per hour. Fortunately, I was still achieving lots of success, winning races in hideously dangerous conditions, which gave me greater leverage. For instance, I had won four times at the original Nurburgring - the most dangerous circuit in the world - and yet I was always afraid of that place. In 1968 I won there by over 4 minutes, in thick fog and rain, where you could hardly see the road. That race should never had been held, but having won it, I was given more credibility for my cause of demanding safety improvements. I wouldn't have done what I did had I wanted to win a popularity contest!"

So go you Wee Scot Bastard!



(I think this was an ad for Astroglide)

While still racing he was one of the first modern sport figures to endorse products for silly sums of money. By the time he retired in 1973 he was a very rich man. He continued to work very closely with Ford over the years (the engine supplier that took him to his championships) and was often in their board room giving his educated opinion. He also started calling races in America on ABC and the people loved him. Then again, it's hard not to like the man. His passion and dedication for the sport is just pleasant.

In 1997 Jackie, along with his son started Stewart Grand Prix and were racing cars in the highest level of motorsport as an independent team (using Ford power of course)

In the late 1990's he was subjected to much media scrutiny due to his outlandish behaviour and questionable style of dress.

See, as a proud Scottish man he was constantly wearing kilts. Not your normal run of the mill kilts either, but micro-mini-kilts. Grown men were offended, yet filled with envy at the same time. Young children frightened whenever he had a seat or bent over, for he never wore underwear which is standard procedure in Scotland. This led to his giganticus balls and bigus-dickis constantly being in plain view for all. He didn't even have to bend over for you to get a full eye of pure unadulterated BALL. They were as big and red as W.C. Fields' booze blown nose.

Eventually he gave in and started sporting casual Scottish slacks and carrying around a sceptor.

A SCEPTER!


Jackie with his scepter, tiny dog, and group of mysterious kilted Scots that follow him everywhere. Look at how Scottish he is!

The incident which gave him the most trouble though came in 1999 when he threw a half eaten piece of Scottish delicacy onto the racing line of the start/finish straight at the Canadian GP. He was disgusted by the manner of which a Jordan driver was defending his position (in the most unracedriverly of ways) and would not yield to Stewart's then driver, Rubens Barichello. In a fit of rage he chucked his half eaten haggis onto the track which was then inhaled by Mika Hakkinen's air thirsty Mclaren on the final laps of the race obstructing the cooling of the engine and causing Mika to lose the race with an engine failure.

At this point there was a call for him to leave the F1 business, which he turned around into a huge money making venture, as he was planning on leaving anyway.

In 2000 Stewart sold his team for roughly $100 million to Ford and the team was rebadged as Jaguar. Even though their budget was much higher than when the team was known as "Stewart Grand Prix", they never won a race again after Jackie ceased being the team principal (Jaguar may have been more successful had they not fired Niki Lauda as the team principal in 2002, but American politics really fucked that team up)

Late in 2004 Jaguar sold to Red Bull for only $55 million. We all know who got the biggest chuckle out of this huge loss.

Having been involved in F1 for over 40 years is amazing. You still see him today at many a GP, and he is often more than happy to share some of his old man wisdom.




Stewart at the Nurburgring 1968

*** The THE defines that JYS is the definite article. THE Flying Scot. Much like the THE in Ohio State University. While there are a number of Ohio state universities (Ohio University, Kent State University, The University of Toledo, and so on), there is only one institution named "Ohio State University" just like there have been other Scots in F1 sometimes referred to as "The Flying Scot" yet there is only one Jackie Stewart and he is in fact THE one and only Flying Fucking Scot!!

** The large asterisk is TM and (R) Milhouse World Order Industries LLC