Bill Spear

The Maserati 300S Spyder Fantuzzi with the Sherwood Johnston and Bill Spear third place at the 1955 12 Hours of Sebring reached

William "Bill" Spear (born June 27, 1916 , † August 27, 1979 in West Palm Beach ) was an American racing driver .

Career

Spear, who was a close friend of Briggs Cunningham , was active as a sports car racing driver in the 1950s. Through his relationship with Cunningham, he competed in most of the races for his racing team. His greatest achievement was winning the championship in the SCCA sports car championship in 1953 .

He competed five times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans , where he and Sherwood Johnston finished third in the overall standings in 1954 in a Cunningham C4-R . Two years earlier he had finished fourth. He finished third in the 1955 Sebring 12-hour race .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1951	Bill Spear	Ferrari 340 America Barchetta	Johnny Claes	failure	Clutch damage
1952	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-R	Briggs Cunningham	4th place and class win
1953	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-R	Briggs Cunningham	Rank 7
1954	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-R	Sherwood Johnston	Rank 3
1955	Briggs Cunningham	Jaguar D-Type	Phil Walters	failure	Ignition damage

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1952	William Spear	Ferrari 340 America	Briggs Cunningham	failure	suspension
1953	William Spear	Ferrari 225S	Phil Hill	failure	differential
1954	William Spear	Ferrari 375MM	Phil Hill	failure	Damage to the stern
1955	William Spear	Maserati 300S	Sherwood Johnston	Rank 3
1956	Jaguar New York Inc.	Jaguar D-Type	Sherwood Johnston	failure	Valve damage

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953	Bill Spear Briggs Cunningham	Ferrari 225S Cunningham C4-R	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
			DNF		7th
1954	Bill Spear Briggs Cunningham	Ferrari 375MM Cunningham C4-R	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
				DNF		3
1955	Bill Spear Briggs Cunningham	Maserati 300S Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
				3		DNF
1956	Jaguar New York Inc.	Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
				DNF

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .

Web links

Commons : Bill Spear  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Bill Spear at Racing Sports Cars
• Bill Spear at Motorsport Memorial

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sebring 12-hour race in 1955