Sherwood Johnston

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

Sherwood Johnston (born September 29, 1927 - November 9, 2000 in Eureka ) was an American racing driver .

Career

Sherwood Johnston was active in sports car racing in the 1950s. His greatest achievement was winning the championship in the SCCA sports car championship in 1952 . His career began in 1951 in national sports car races in the USA, which he contested as a privateer in his Jaguar XK 120 . Through his successes he came in contact with Briggs Cunningham . In the next few years he also competed in international races for his racing team.

The first international competition took place in the 1953 Sebring 12-hour race , the first sports car world championship in motorsport history. Since the contract with Cunningham only came into effect in the summer, he drove a Jaguar D-Type from Art Feuerbacher together with Bob Wilder in third place in the overall ranking. The first success in Europe was third overall in the 1953 12-hour race in Reims , a race that was not part of the world championship, but was well attended. It was the first time for and with Cunningham. With the C4-R , the two Americans only had to admit defeat to the Jaguar D-Type from Stirling Moss and Peter Whitehead , as well as the Talbot T26GS from Louis Rosier and Yves Giraud-Cabantous . In addition to this placement, third place and class victory at the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1954 was his greatest international success.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1954	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-R	Bill Spear	Rank 3
1955	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C6-R	Briggs Cunningham	failure	Cylinder damage

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1953	Kind of Feuerbacher	Jaguar C-Type	Bob Wilder	3rd place and class win
1954	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-R	Briggs Cunningham	failure	Engine failure
1955	William Spear	Maserati 300S	Bill Spear	Rank 3
1956	Jaguar New York Inc.	Jaguar D-Type	Bill Spear	failure	Valve damage

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953	Kind of Feuerbacher	Jaguar C-Type	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
			3
1954	Briggs Cunningham	Cunningham C4-R	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
				DNF		3
1955	Bill Spear Briggs Cunningham	Maserati 300S Cunningham C6-R	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. 2 volumes. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .

Web links

Commons : Sherwood Johnston  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Sherwood Johnston at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 1953 Reims 12-hour race