John Gordon Bennett

John Gordon Bennett (born September 13, 1913 in Saint Helier , † February 12, 1988 in Orange City ) was an American racing driver of British origin.

Racing career

John Gordon Bennett was born on the Channel Island of Jersey and was an active driver in motorsport in the late 1940s and 1950s. He was involved in the US sports car championship and successful in hillclimb racing . In his career he achieved six overall and nine class wins. He celebrated his first victory in 1952 at the Brynfan Tyddyn hill climb , where he won ahead of Chuck Dietrich and Bill Lloyd on an MG TD . The last success dates back to 1957 when he won a sports car race in Mansfield .

He was registered for the Briggs Cunningham team in the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans . At Sebring, the best place in the overall classification was a 12th place in 1956 . At Le Mans he was fifth overall as a partner of Cunningham in 1954 .

In 1948 and 1949 he took part in four Formula 1 races without world championship status. In a race in his native Saint Helier in 1948 he finished tenth ( Bob Gerard won the race ahead of George Abecassis and Reg Parnell ).

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1953	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-RK	Charles Moran	Rank 10
1954	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-R	Briggs Cunningham	Rank 5

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1953	Briggs Cunningham	Frazer Nash Targa Florio	Charles Moran	failure	malfunction
1954	Frank Miller	Jaguar C-Type	Trevor McKenna	Disqualified
1955	BS Cunningham	Cunningham C6-R	Briggs Cunningham	failure	Gearbox damage
1956	Briggs Cunningham	Jaguar D-Type	Briggs Cunningham	Rank 12

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953	Briggs Cunningham	Frazer Nash Targa Florio Cunningham C4-R	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
			DNF		10
1954	Frank Miller Briggs Cunningham	Jaguar C-Type Cunningham C4-R	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
				DNF		5
1955	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C6-R	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
				DNF
1956	Briggs Cunningham	Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
				12

Web links

• John Gordon Bennett at the Driver Database
• John Gordon Bennett at Racing Sports Cars
• John Gordon Bennett at F1 Stats

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Brynfan Tyddyn Hill Climb 1952
2. ^ 1957 Mansfield sports car race
3. ↑ Jersey Road Race 1948