Granddad’s Sebring

Many times you’ve heard me say, virtually each time I show a photo that features a photographer perched perilously close to the track, that I long to see the photos taken by that photographer. It’s usually the result of me imagining what it might be like to see the race through that person’s eyes. It’s easy to forget that on the other side of every great motorsport photo was a photographer standing, waiting for the perfect moment to freeze in time. When I see images of those photographers standing trackside, I’m reminded of that.

Yesterday I got an email that captures something of that desire. Automotive photographer Jonny Shears emailed me to let me know that I’d recently posted a photo of his grandfather hunched over the bonnet of an OSCA competing at the 1960 Sebring. That’s him there in the black shirt peeking into the #63 OSCA of John Gordon & John Bentley. Amazing to think of Jonny sitting down to his computer and unexpectedly coming across a photo of his grandfather. Even better, Jonny had recently edited together some footage that his granddad had shot at that very race and at LeMans of the same year—the year he was managing the OSCA racing team—and wondered if I’d like to see it.

Would I like to see it? Of course!

Thanks for sending this along, Jonny. It’s stories like this that make the vintage sportscar community so endlessly fascinating.