18 replies to this topic

[Richard Jenkins]

http://www.autosport...t.php/id/125633

RIP Jack.
A real gentleman and enthusiast. No mean driver either.

[Sharman]

I only met him once but he was one of the driver's by which others were judged

[Simon Hadfield]

Exactly so - he was one of the standard setters in all he did, and always interesting and interested. A truly Great Briton, one of the very few gentlemen in motorsport, then and now.  

[JacnGille]

Sad news

[Alan Cox]

Very sad news. The accolade of 'Gentleman' Jack was well deserved and he continued to be one of the greatest ambassadors for British motor sport at home and abroad

[kayemod]

I saw Jack race at one of the first race meetings I ever attended 1950 something or other, he was hustling along in a black Austin A90 Westminster, almost identical to the one my dad had driven us to Silverstone in. It really impressed me the way he drove that old bus, I was forever urging dad to drive faster afterwards.

 

PS, I'm pretty sure that dad's car had a column change, did anyone ever race with one of those, Austin Westminster or anything else?

[Doug Nye]

This really is a bad year. Very, very sorry to hear this particular news this morning. Jack really was an exceptionally pleasant, friendly and approachable gentleman - but like all real racers blessed with a pleasant personality one should never think for one moment that here was some kind of old softy - for in truth there was a core of spring steel. I liked, admired and respected him enormously and right now I am really happy that we could arrange a final public outing for him in the Willment Cobra at last year's Revival Meeting... Most sincere condolences to Jack's family and many, many friends.

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 08 August 2016 - 17:43.

[David Birchall]

Very sorry to hear this--one of those people we all wish we were.  RIP 

[Vitesse2]

Posted on behalf of DCN. Photos © copyright the GP Library.

 

Last hurrah - Jack with David Cottingham going out as the pace car for the 2015 Revival TT in his former Willment Cobra ’39 PH’

 

 

Proud Jack - with the Cobra Daytona Coupe less than a year ago

 

 

Gentleman Jack indeed - cutting a Goodwood rug with Mrs Allen Grant

 

 

 

 

[cpbell]

Oh dear, what dreadful news.  As a Norfolkman, Jack is someone that I. as a thirty-something enthusiast of motor racing history, could be proud of.  His biography is a fascinating and eye-opening read, and it's obvious that he was superbly talented in saloon and GT cars.

[RobLotusFord]

Gentleman Jack Sears gave a superb talk to the members of Club Lotus Avon area in April 2014, all of the members have a great memory of a great evening with Jack Sears.

 

2016 has been a very bad year as we have lost too may people.

 

A photo is at:

 

http://www.ferrarite.../clublotus/gfx/club_meeting/2014-04-01/Jack%20Sears.jpg

 

Very best regards.

Rob

[RobLotusFord]

RE Jack Sears photo on Club Lotus Avon, Google Jack Sears Club Lotus Avon and then scroll down to item posted 10 April 2014 and click on photo to view the larger image.

 

Photo shows, Ernie Unger, Martin Woodhead and Gentleman Jack Sears.

 

Rob.

[cooper997]

Hopefully this link goes direct to the photo Rob mentions.

http://www.ferrarite.../Jack Sears.jpg

 

My condolences to Jack's family and friends.

 

Stephen

[Robin Fairservice]

I won't ever forget watching him drive out of Woodcote at Silverstone in the Ford Galaxie, driving it as if it was just a Cortina!  Although I belonged to the BRSCC and Flagged for them for many years, we occasionally were asked to go to Silverstone for a Maidstone & Mid Kent National event.  One year I was a Pit Marshall, and it was when the pits had a raised lane.  The outside railing was proving to be a great spectator site and we became nervous about peoples' safety, so we had to ask everyone to move away. One person I had to ask was Jack Sears!  He was very good and did what I asked; others wanted to argue, including the pretty young lady who explained that she was Peter Clark' s mechanic!  He was driving a Ferrari 250 GTO!

 

Didn't he serve on the RAC Competition Committee?

 

I am so sorry to hear of his passing; at my age it happens too often.

[raceannouncer2003]

I got Jack Sears' autograph (wonder where it is now), or maybe just a photo (stashed away somewhere), at the 2003 Goodwood FOS.  He was just putting his brief case in the trunk of his (original) Ford Galaxie.  I'm glad the Grants got to see him again at Goodwood last year.

 

Vince H.

[Louism]

Gentleman Jack Sears' tribute on the ACO website :

 

http://www.lemans.or...1930-2016/42727

[d j fox]

This is so sad.

At the 1963 International Trophy race I was a marshal at Copse corner with an excellent view of the much anticipated saloon car race and the debut of the Willment Ford Galaxie. Gentleman Jack eased the car away from pole and was behind the Jaguars until the Hangar Straight where he simply hurtled by them , ending the Jag domination of British saloon car racing forever.

His handling of the NASCAR machine was so smooth-as well as the Cortinas and, of course the Willment Cobras--who can forget the 1964 British GP support GT race-surely one of Jack’s best?

Condolences to all his family and friends.

RIP Jack and thanks for some great memories.

 

David Fox

[ReWind]

Comprehensive obituary by the BRDC:

It is with very great regret that the BRDC has to report that Jack Sears passed away on the evening of Saturday 6 August. He had been suffering from cancer for some time.

Jack was born into a motoring family, his father Stanley having a particular passion for veteran and vintage cars and ultimately became President of the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain. Jack was educated at Charterhouse before going to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester in order to pursue his chosen career as a farmer but motor sport was never far away. From his first race in 1950 with an MG TC at Goodwood and various competitive events in his father’s ex-Dario Resta 1914 TT Sunbeam, Jack progressed through a variety of typical ‘50s sports cars –in particular a Cooper-MG and a Lister-Bristol – before beginning an association with the British Motor Corporation, first with an Austin A50 in the 1956 Monte Carlo Rally before acquiring the Austin A105 Westminster with which he won the first British Saloon Car Championship in 1958, after a shootout with Tommy Sopwith in a pair of Riley 1.5s at Brands Hatch. The A105 was followed by an Austin-Healey 3000 for a mixture of racing and international rallying.

For the next few years until Ford came calling for 1963, Jack became one of the outstanding drivers of saloon and GT cars in British racing at the wheel of Tommy Sopwith’s Equipe Endeavour Jaguar 3.4 and 3.8 saloons, Jaguar E-type, Aston Martin DB4GT and Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta. His duel with Colin Chapman’s John Coombs 3.8 in the saloon car race supporting the 1960 British Grand Prix at Silverstone will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it; in later years Jack could recall with precise detail how it was that the Lotus founder pipped him at the post. In 1963 Jack won his second BSCC title, mainly with John Willment’s vast NASCAR Ford Galaxie, supplemented by some races in a Ford Cortina GT and a Lotus Cortina. He was also invited by Maranello Concessionaires to share a Ferrari 330LMB at Le Mans with the late Mike Salmon which was rewarded with a class win and fifth overall.

John Willment acquired an AC Cobra for 1964 with which Jack had a memorable race at Brands Hatch in the British GP support race when he charged back from a black flag pit stop to win after catching and passing the E-type of Jackie Stewart. The second Willment Cobra, the Coupe, also produced another of Jack’s legendary drives when he won the Autosport 3 Hours at Snetterton in increasingly dense fog. Jack used to enjoy telling how all the other drivers in the race lined up behind him because they reckoned that, as a local farmer, he ought to know which way the road went! For what proved to be Jack’s last season as a driver, he was team mate to Jimmy Clark and Sir John Whitmore in Lotus Cortinas and also shared a Shelby Daytona Cobra with Sir John and Dr Dick Thompson in various rounds of the FIA GT Championship which included a class win again at Le Mans.

Jack’s career ended on a weekday at Silverstone in late 1965 when, after running some laps in Jimmy Clark’s Indy 500-winning Lotus-Ford 38, he went out in a Lotus-Ford 40 for some tyre testing. The car went out of control at Abbey, landing on top of Jack and almost severing his left arm. Thanks to the skill of surgeon Ken McKee (father of BRDC Member the late Mike McKee) Jack’s arm was saved but there would be no more racing. After a lengthy recovery, Jack was soon back into motor sport, planning and undertaking a full recce of the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon. When that major undertaking was successfully completed Jack became a director of both the BRDC and some of its subsidiary companies, in particular Green Crop Conservation Ltd given his farming background and also Bradley Plant Hire Ltd and Silverstone Leisure Limited. When Gerald Lascelles retired as President of the Club in 1991 he was succeeded by Jack who very regrettably had to stand down a year later as a result of the Walkinshaw affair. Although deeply saddened by the outcome of his many years of service to the Club, Jack never lost touch and was a regular attender at AGMs, EGMs and other Club occasions. He also served as a Steward of the Royal Automobile Club, Chairman of the RACMSA race committee and Chairman of the Ferrari Owners’ Club. In recent years Jack enjoyed and was honoured by the fact that the British Touring Car Championship instigated an annual trophy in his name, currently for the best performance by a BTCC rookie.

To his wife Diana, son David and daughters Suzanne and Jennifer, the BRDC extends its sincere condolences at the loss of someone who was unique in the contribution which he made to motor sport both on and off the track.

[pete53]

Very sad news indeed. Jack Sears was there right from the beginning of my interest in motor racing. The first meeting I attended was at Crystal Palace, Whit Monday 1963. Jack piloted the Willment Galaxie to victory, somehow steering the brute around the very tight confines of the Palace to an impressive tyre scorching win - a sight etched into my memory. Then the  following year I witnessed his drive in the Cobra at Brands at the GP meeting when there was certain shenanigans in the pits when he was black-flagged.

 

I always thought it a shame that his racing days came to a rather premature end due his testing accident.

 

Great memories and a great loss.