Drivers

Tim Mayer

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1938, Tim Mayer and his elder brother Teddy both attended Yale University. Teddy went on to law school at Cornell but, as soon as he was 21 and able to get a competition licence, Tim went racing with an Austin Healey, supported by his new wife Garrill. His exploits showed that he was very quick. For the 1960 season he decided to go into open-wheeler racing and acquired a Lotus 18 Formula Junior car. He finished second in five of the eight races in which he competed before the car was destroyed in a race at Louisville.

Tim was then drafted into the US Army and stationed in Puerto Rico but despite this he managed to organize leave on the necessary weekends and flew back and forth to the United States to compete in Formula Junior in a team organized by his brother Teddy. Rev-Em Racing featured Mayer and another brilliant youngster called Peter Revson. Mayer won the 1962 SCCA Formula Junior title in a Cooper and at the end of the year was given his chance to race a third factory Cooper in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.

In 1963 the brothers headed to Europe where Tim drove for Ken Tyrrell Racing and at the end of the year he was signed to be Bruce McLaren's team mate in the 1964 World Championship. Before the World Championship began the pair took part in the new Tasman Cup series in Australian and New Zealand. Mayer finished second to Denny Hulme in the first event at Levin and a week later chased McLaren across the line to finish third in the New Zealand GP at Pukekohe. Finishing second to McLaren at Teretonga underlined his abilities. A month later, in practice for the final round of the Tasman series at Longford in Tasmania, he went off at high speed in the braking area for Longford Corner, where the cars went light over a slight rise, and crashed into one of the trees beside the road. He was killed instantly.

A distraught Teddy decided to continue in racing and became the force behind Team McLaren, running the business after McLaren's death in 1970 and winning World Championships with Emerson Fittipaldi in 1974 and James Hunt in 1976.