Jack Sears

The Austin A90 Westminster with which Jack Sears won the British Touring Car Championship in 1958

The shootout of the British Touring Car Championship in 1958 was decided with two Riley One-Point-Five

Ford Galaxie 500 Fastback

Former Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 330LMB, with Jack Sears and Mike Salmon fifth overall at the 1963 24 Hours of Le Mans were

Jack Sears and Frank Gardner's Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupé at the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring in 1965

Jack George Sears (born February 16, 1930 in Northampton - † August 6, 2016 ) was a British racing car driver and the father of David Sears .

Racing career

Jack Sears was a well-known touring and sports car driver in Great Britain under the nickname Gentleman Jack from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s . Outside his home country, he was mainly seen as a co-organizer of the London – Sydney marathon rally , which was first held in 1968 . Sears was responsible for the route in 1968. The race ran over 31 stages and almost 11,000 kilometers from Crystal Palace in London to Sydney . Between the eleventh and twelfth stage, the crossing took place by ship from Bombay to Fremantle . Of the 100 starters, including Roger Clark , Lucien Bianchi , Simo Lampinen , Jean-Claude Ogier , Gilbert Staepelaere and Paddy Hopkirk , 56 made it to the finish line. The winner was Andrew Cowan on a Hillman Hunter .

His racing career began in 1950 with club racing. Later rallies and hill climbs followed . 1954 saw the first successes with vehicles from Brian Lister , who also financed the operations. In 1958 he became British Touring Car Champion , winning the first championship of this racing series. The title came about in an unusual way. After the last race at Brands Hatch , there was a tie between Tommy Sopwith and Sears. According to the regulations, in this case a coin toss should decide who is the winner. In order to avoid this unpopular decision, those responsible for the series decided to have the two pilots race at Brands Hatch. Two Riley One Point Five have been prepared. The drivers had to cover five laps, then swap vehicles and drive five laps again. The winner and thus the championship winner was the driver who achieved the best time in the addition of the two runs. Sears won by 1.6 seconds.

After finishing third in 1962 , on a Jaguar MkII 3.8 behind John Love ( Morris Mini Cooper ) and Peter Harper ( Sunbeam Rapier ), he won his second British Touring Car Championship in 1963 . The lead over second-placed John Whitmore was only two points (Sears reached 71 points). The emergency vehicle was a Ford Cortina GT . However, he achieved his three victories of the season with a 7-liter Ford Galaxie from NASCAR .

Sears competed four times in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and twice in the 12 Hours of Sebring . He made his debut at Le Mans in 1960 as a partner of Peter Riley on an Austin-Healey 3000 . The race ended prematurely after 89 laps due to bearing damage. In 1963 he drove a Ferrari 330LMB for Maranello Concessionaires , Ronnie Hoare's team . Together with Mike Salmon , he reached fifth place in the final classification and won the class for GT vehicles with a displacement of up to 4 liters. After a failure in 1964 , he placed in the top ten of the overall ranking for the second time in 1965 . With Dick Thompson as teammates he drove a plant - Shelby Coupe Daytona to the eighth place of the final classification.

He made his Sebring debut in 1960 . Two years later he was sixteenth overall; Partners in the MGA was Andrew Hedges .

The second British racing team for which Sears competed alongside Maranello Concessionaires touring and sports car races was the racing team of John Willment . Willment, building contractor and one of the largest Ford dealers in Great Britain, founded his highly successful racing team together with John Wyer in 1966 . From 1963 to 1965 Sears drove for Willment AC Cobras and Shelby Daytonas in international sports car races.

However, the Daytona Coupé that Sears drove in the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring in 1965 did not report Willment, but Alan Mann Racing . Teammate was the Australian Frank Gardner . In the race, the duo reached tenth place in the overall standings, one lap behind their teammates Bob Bondurant and Jochen Neerpasch , who finished seventh. The placement meant second place in the class for GT cars over 3-liter displacement.

Jack Sears also went on a number of single- seater trips. In 1960 he was 18th in the Vanwall Trophy on a Cooper T51 and third in the Crystal Palace Trophy behind Trevor Taylor and George Lawton .

After retiring as an active driver at the end of the 1965 season, he became a farmer in Norfolk .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1960	Jack Sears	Austin-Healey 3000	Peter Riley	failure	Bearing damage
1963	Maranello Concessionaires Ltd.	Ferrari 330LMB	Mike Salmon	5th place and class win
1964	AC Cars Ltd.	AC Cobra Coupé	Peter Bolton	failure	accident
1965	AC Cars Ltd.	Shelby Coupe Daytona	Dick Thompson	Rank 8

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1960	British Motor Corp.	Austin-Healey 3000	Peter Riley	Rank 33
1962	Ecurie Safety Fast	MGA	Andrew Hedges	Rank 16

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1960	BMC Jack Sears	Austin-Healey 3000	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM
				33			DNF
1962	Ecurie Safety Fast	MGA	DAY	SEB	SEB	MAY	TAR	BER	ONLY	LEM	TAV	CCA	RTT	ONLY	BRI	BRI	PAR
					16
1963	Maranello Concessionaires John Coombs	Ferrari 330LMB Jaguar E-Type	DAY	SEB	SEB	TAR	SPA	MAY	ONLY	CON	ROS	LEM	MON	WIS	TAV	FRE	CCE	RTT	OVI	ONLY	MON	MON	TDF	BRI
												5						4th
1964	AC Cars John Willment	AC Cobra	DAY	SEB	TAR	MON	SPA	CON	ONLY	ROS	LEM	REI	FRE	CCE	RTT	SIM	ONLY	MON	TDF	BRI	BRI	PAR
											DNF				4th
1965	Alan Mann Racing	Shelby Daytona	DAY	SEB	BOL	MON	MON	RTT	TAR	SPA	ONLY	MUG	ROS	LEM	REI	BOZ	FRE	CCE	OVI	ONLY	BRI	BRI
							9	7th			10			8th	9			4th

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909413-06-3 .

Web links

Commons : Jack Sears  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Jack Sears at the Driver Database
• Jack Sears at Racing Sports Cars
• Jack Sears at Historic Racing

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jack Sears RIP
2. ↑ London-Sydney Rally 1968
3. ↑ British Touring Car Championship 1958
4. ↑ British Touring Car Championship 1962
5. ↑ British Touring Car Championship 1963
6. ^ Vanwall Trophy 1960
7. ^ Crystal Palace Trophy 1960
8. ↑ Interview with Jack Sears