Jim
Hall

Jim Hall was born in Abilene in 1935 and grew up in Colorado and New Mexico. While studying engineering at the California Institute of Technology, he began competing in local sports car events. Carroll Shelby put him in new racing cars, and Hall often won in them.

In Formula 1 he took part in one World Championship race in each of 1960 and 1961, and was entered in 1962 without starting. At the 1960 United States Grand Prix at Riverside, driving his own Lotus-Climax, he ran fifth for much of the race until a differential problem appeared shortly before the finish. A strong drive at the 1962 Mexican Grand Prix earned him an offer from the British Racing Partnership for 1963. That year he contested nine races for the team in a Lotus and finished thirteenth in the championship. His best result was fifth in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, where he was racing for the first time. He made 11 World Championship starts in total.

Hall was also a car constructor and team owner. He backed a sports car project by the Californian builders Troutman and Barnes and named the car the Chaparral. As its successor he built the Chaparral 2A with Hap Sharp in Midland, Texas, using a chassis made of fibreglass composite. Hall won the United States Road Racing Championship in 1964, and in 1965 he won the 12 Hours of Sebring in the Chaparral against factory-backed Ford and Ferrari entries. In 1966 came the Chaparral 2E, with a high-mounted adjustable wing, for the first Can-Am season. Chaparrals also won the 1000 km at the Nürburgring and the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch that year.

An accident in the 1968 Can-Am race at Las Vegas largely ended his driving career, although he returned briefly in Trans-Am in 1970. That year he also introduced the Chaparral 2J with its suction system. After it was banned, he left Can-Am and withdrew from racing. He later ran Haas-Hall Racing with Carl Haas, which won seven consecutive titles in Formula 5000 and Can-Am from 1974 to 1980. His team won the Indianapolis 500, the Pocono 500 and the California 500 in 1978. In 1980 Johnny Rutherford won the Indianapolis 500 and the CART championship in the Chaparral 2K. Hall retired from the sport after the 1996 season. He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1994 and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 2008.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jim Hall (racing driver)”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.