John Bentley at the wheel of the OSCA S/N 769 which won the Index of Performance at Sebring, 1960. Co-driver Jack Gordon tells the story. Credit Jeff Allison.
Sebring 1960: John and Jack Win the Index
Originally published on September 9, 2009
By Jack Gordon
Jack Gordon continues his narrative of the Le Mans and Sebring events of 1960, in which he and journalist John Bentley competed in two different 750cc OSCAs. His first article covered the Le Mans event (read OSCA at Le Mans) which came after the Sebring race addressed here.
In 1957 I began to think seriously about driver schools and what to take to school, knowing that my 56 Healey’s handling and (un)reliability needed improvement. A friend of mine told me that John Bentley had a used Alfa for sale that ought to be suitable, so I went over and liked it as the Alfa already had the stock 4.1 axle changed to a 4.55, which is what you want for short or medium SCCA courses.
The next year I went down to Sebring as part of Bentley’s pit crew, he had a really crappy looking Elva MK.3 1100 set up with 4 Amal carbs and no paint on the body; in fact it was all lumpy. I said to myself who is this Ray Nichols guy who doesn’t know how to finish off a car? I kept doing driver schools and regional races and picked up a few trophies along the way. In 1959 the SCCA gave me a National ticket and I did one race at Montgomery airport but my drive-to-work Alfa was not competitive with the big boys from Cleveland and Chicago. It was about then that Bentley suggested we go halves on an OSCA for Sebring and we were off and running.
In February 1960, only a month before the race, Bentley went to the docks in Long Island to pick up the OSCA, which had just arrived from Italy. We had master mechanic John Sabiston install 2 additional headlights for night driving. With great élan, we named our racing team Ecurie Lapin Agile. (Agile Rabbit)
There was room below the factory headlights for one-gallon zerex cans to be used as enclosures. Sabiston had a Mark X Jaguar which made a good tow car. He mounted an extra gas tank on the trailer with a remotely controlled electric pump to transfer fuel into one of the fender-mounted tanks of the Jag; this provided extra cruising range. Good thing the safety marshals didn’t see this one.
The OSCA 750 of Gordon/Bentley arrives at Sebring (photo is road-weary having been in my wallet the last 49 years).
Sebring was a two-day trip in those days (no Interstates). We managed to avoid all the speed traps in Georgia (or maybe they were race fans). We arrived at our quarters in a house near DeSoto City owned by a retired Marine Colonel, whose name is lost to the ages. What I do remember is, don’t ever park the racecar on the Colonel’s grass.
When we went over to get registered, we found that Firestone was offering prize money if we would use their crummy tires. Money was nice and we decided to take the gamble even though the lap times would probably suffer. We were informed that the Firestones were 520 x 14 inch passenger-car tires for a Plymouth Valiant made in their Canadian factory. OSCA provided 3.5? wide rims as standard equipment; later I bought a set of Junior wheels with 4.5? rims (but here I’m getting ahead of the story).
Practice was uneventful, the factory had everything screwed together correctly and it appeared that three-hour shifts between refuelings with the 60-litre tank would be feasible with maybe twenty minutes to spare. Then we noticed a transverse wave develop across the tread of the Firestones as the concrete abraded the polybutadiene. (The transverse tread wave also developed gradually during the race.) It did not seem to be a safety problem, but proper racing tires don’t do that.
In practice, I had one interesting occurrence while chasing a Corvette. He blew his engine right in front of me leaving bits and pieces all over the concrete. I think I ran over a distributor; there wasn’t much ground clearance on the OSCA, so I was concerned about my manhood but the only thing that happened was a crease on the underside of the aluminum.
Bentley has a course deviation but no harm done.
The race strategy was for Bentley to do the first shift and then I would do the night driving since my 28-year-old eyes were presumably in better shape than John’s. The start was at 10 am Saturday and we were off and running. Bentley did a 3:59.13 lap on lap #15. Great, but we had to slow him down to conserve Canadian tires.
At 1 pm the car got fuel and a fresh driver, me. I was cruising around having a good time watching all the Ferraris scream past down the Warehouse Straight, a piece of road that was only two lanes wide. I began to overtake an Alfa Spider, its enormous glass windshield still in place, holding it back. The Alfa, although being blue flagged, refused to make way and up behind me came this red thing with 3 liters and 12 cylinders. Think fast, Captain Flagg (that was a famous radio show from 1945). I held my left wheels on the left edge of the pavement and the Alfa fortunately did likewise on the right edge. With my right arm I waved the Ferrari through in the center lane which he promptly did. Talk about being eaten alive by sharks.
The 90 deg left turn exiting Websters. I had two Giulietta Spiders, they both leaned like that. Note just a little bit of lean noticeable on the OSCA. Credit Jeff Allison
A while later I was interested to see Rees Makins with the 1.5 liter OSCA trying to dig his way out of the sandbank at the end of that same straight. Was I glad I didn’t have to do any of that, because at about 3:30 in the afternoon in the open rotisserie of an OSCA, on the hottest day of the year, and I started to feel really terrible. I did a couple more laps and knew I couldn’t handle any more. When got to the pits, they helped me out, seeing as I was white as a sheet.
There was an air-conditioned motor home nearby and they put me inside and tanked me up with Gatorade. In about twenty minutes I was fine. The lesson for me: always carry some sugar cubes in my coveralls pocket when I’m driving.
My co-driver John Bentley is driving, exiting the hairpin (note the RRDC sticker on the headrest). They had a platform set up on the inside of that corner for signalling and observers but I don’t remember the details. I was too busy keeping the OSCA on the road. Photo credit: Schneider and Associates, Detroit.
Close on to 7 pm the air temperature was cooling off, it was time for my shift. There was somewhat less traffic now; some of the cars were now having mechanical problems. Something like a Lola Mk 1 or an Elva or a Lotus Elite is too lightly constructed to stand up to the pounding a chassis gets at Sebring. I was cruising around minding my own business, lots of light provided by the four headlights when suddenly about 9:30 pm, I am cut off at the 45 deg left bend following the start/finish by a slowly moving Ferrari (what did that guy think he was doing? Or maybe he was just disoriented). The only thing I could do is lock up all four and try to avoid him. I got it sorted out, restarted the stalled engine and drove off.
The loneliness of the long-distance runner. Photo credit: Schneider and Associates, Detroit.
Pretty soon I discovered the brakes had gone away. It’s decision time: shall I report to the pit for a brake bleed or shall I continue? I elected to continue using mostly engine braking to get the car thru the corners. I crossed the finish line at just about 11 hrs 58 minutes elapsed. I did a cool-down lap. It feels good to relax. I reported to the pit lane & dragged my left shoe on the pavement to get the car stopped.
Oliver Collins, at right, brings the restored OSCA to Jack Gordon’s home in Reston, Virginia in 2004. Collins owned the OSCA for twenty years! Credit Lucine Collins.
The official elapsed time for car 63 according to the IBM computer is 12:01.59 but only the 12 hrs exactly counts. What counted is that we won the Index of Performance, second only in importance to the overall victory itself. If the winning Porsche RS 60 of Hans Herrmann and Olivier Gendebien had been only 4 sec. faster in the 12 hrs they would have been credited with a 197th lap and taken the Index prize. Such is motor racing.
Gordon, left, recalls the little engine that could.
The crew bled the brakes on the car and restored the stopping power to the OSCA but I had a big blister on my right foot from pushing the pedal too hard, this slowed me down for a few days. I was also stone deaf from the exhaust (pipes on right side of car but still much too loud). Lesson learned: wear earplugs. The $500.00 (per driver) check from Ray Firestone was nice to get, as was the engraved Omega self-winder watch which I am still using. Still have that nice silver Amoco trophy, too. Bentley had a duplicate made so we both had our own trophies, which was very nice of him, for forty-four years later the OSCA’s current owner (at the time), Oliver Collins, was able to appreciate the car’s most significant trophy.
Forty-four years after the Index win at Sebring, new and original owners of #769 were brought together via VeloceToday. At left, Jack Gordon pours a cup of tea for Oliver Collins, who looks over the Amoco Cup won by the OSCA. “I was very pleased to see the restoration work that Oliver and others have had done on the car over the years; it was in rather rough shape when I sold it to Roger Clouser in 1966, not knowing that it was going to become a valuable antique, now residing in a Japanese collection.” Credit Lucine Collins.
Comments
Tanaduke Wylie says
September 18, 2009 at 6:46 am
Gordon writes, “There was an air-conditioned motor home nearby and they put me inside and tanked me up with Gatorade.” This was Sebring 1960. Gatorade was invented in 1965. The old remedy was watered brandy.
jack gordon says
September 19, 2009 at 6:47 pm
tw –
it sure wasn’t watered brandy. i needed a quick glucose fix & some electrolytes. i was too disoriented to read the label, if it wasn’t gatorade it was something similar. stirling moss used to endorse lucozade.
jack
Richard Scroggs says
September 27, 2009 at 11:13 am
Here’s different view of the John and Jack’s OSCA (photo courtesy of the fantastic Barcboys.com site)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3355/3549338220_48f5e13b48_o.jpg
jack gordon says
September 28, 2009 at 5:49 am
thanks rich i’ve seen this one before it is a fantastic picture probably taken during practice.
i think that’s me showing on the left with my hand on the rail & sunglasses.
jack
jack gordon says
October 12, 2009 at 3:21 pm
regarding the elva in 1958, i meant frank nichols. funny how memory does tricky things over a 51 yr period.
jack
Harry says
December 6, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Hello,
I had read the article and wonder, if you can recall something during the race battling with the Austin Healeys as # 20 were 29 laps behind the winner and you were 26. The Austin Healey # 19 had an accident
Look forward to your reply
Harry
John Sabiston says
January 11, 2010 at 9:53 am
SUPRISE !!!
I came across this site by acident . I took delivery of this car for John Bently when it was delivered from over sea . I had the Sabiston’s Pit Stop Garage in Bay Shore , Long Island , NewYork .I set up the car ,took it to Sebring and ran the pit and practice. we staied a Col Travelion’s home in Desota. ( not sure of the spelling . But He had a beautiful daugter !!) John Sabiston 239-693-0221 jfsabiston@comcast.net
C.D. says
February 20, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Thank you, Thank you , Thank you for this gem of inspirational information …..
Here’s to the sunny slopes of long ago…. This article proves the point that bigger is not always necessarily better , faster or more exciting. The Maserati Brothers proved this 60 years ago. Thanks for helping us remember that.
John Sabiston says
March 21, 2012 at 3:12 pm
FOUND THIS SITE AND IT BROUGHT BACK A LOT OF MEMORIES !! iT WAS A FINE OLD CAR , I had a fun drive at day break after a all niter the second time at Sebring . The oil pump chain broke and J.B. did not hear the bearigs and crank shaft burning up ! We talked the Cheneti ( do not spell very good ) out of the engine from their Osca that had at least 12 hr running on it from the year before . He brought it from N.Y. because he thought maybe someone MAY need it !! It took me a few hours to get it where I thought it ran well enough to go another 12 hours PLUS A NICE RIDE AROUND THE LAKE AT DESOTA CITY ,FL. for me ! Candy Pool said it was a good sound to wakeup to . He stayed up with me to about 3:00 AM . He left it up to me to reseat the valves ,change valve springs , tune up and rejet the carbs .
John Sabiston
ps I used to be much faster . I just turned 82 this Feb. 12,2012
jack gordon says
April 11, 2012 at 3:40 pm
JS it’s nice to have your reminiscences.
in 1962 i no longer owned the #774 original engine, but an older model 187 with the square cylinder dimensions (recently i was told that the 774 is owned by a person in Milan). it was good that mr. c. had the spare engine with him, i bought it from him after the sebring race & had him ship the damaged one to the factory for overhaul. per my instructions they bored it to 66 mm so that i could use it the following year for the SCCA 850 class. however we later found the original babbitt rod bearings are no good with the greater torque output, i ran a bearing at elkhart lake in 1963 (a long tow from new jersey for nothing).
candy redid the engine with aftermarket federal-mogul bearings & had the crank repaired & chromed by the crankshaft company.
when i sold the used car to roger clouser in 1966 it had about 120 races on it, i lost count. being an overweight front-engine car it was no longer competitive in club racing. i had no idea it would become a valuable antique (oliver collins’ declared value on it was 75000 after full body reconditioning and a duplicate S187N engine).
i had ed zink build be a mark 3 with 1600 lotus twincam in it, the cosworth mk.13 version with dry sump. later i installed one of my osca 850 engines that car & ran one race at riverside 1966 which was a testing excursion, didn’t win anything.
that engine has recently been sent to an engine rebuilder in illinois (he is actually using the newer of 2 of my engines as a guide to rebuilding the older #758 which came out of a bandini). the zink has a new owner in glen allen & plans to put it back into its original l.6 litre lotus configuration. good luck with that engine, i never did like bicycle chain drive on 2 cams.
jack
jack gordon says
April 11, 2012 at 6:41 pm
the marine colonel’s name was trevelyan.
jack
Jurgen Maes says
February 5, 2014 at 5:22 am
Hello,
how can I contact Jack Gordon?
I am the new owner of the Siata 300BC of John Bentley.
Kind regards, Jurgen.
Richard Hodson says
June 12, 2015 at 1:49 am
Hi I am new here. I live in England and have just purchased the Zink mk3. Is jack gordan still available to get in touch with. It would be nice to trace a bit of history on the car.
Kind regards
Richard
John Sabiston says
August 9, 2015 at 5:17 pm
I am in Fort Myers Florida now ! Have had a few good races ,Drags and other !!! One was a world record in my chev powered dragster in 61 . I am a lot slower now , father time is doing a bad job on me , I am a tired 85 now!! I sure miss the old days ! BEST OF LUCK TO YOU ALL !! 739- 693-0221 John