FEATURE : JOHN EVANS
The debut race in the F2 March 782
A racing life
Currently racing in Historic Formula 2 and Historic Formula Ford , John Evans has been racing for half a century and his passion for the sport remains undimmed , as Paul Lawrence discovered .
Now a largely retired former business owner from Albrighton on the eastern border of Shropshire , John says his passion for racing goes back just about as far as he can remember . It started when watching racing on the TV with his father and even as a 6-year-old he was determined that he was going to go racing . When he finished his education , six months working for his father ’ s company was enough to convince John that it was not what he wanted to do . Instead , he went to work for the
Racing the famous Lotus Elan in ModSports
32 well-known and local Midland Racing Partnership race team , where drivers like Richard Attwood raced F1 and F2 cars in international events . Among the people he met at BRP was Mick Mobberley who would later form Hi- Tech Motorsport and play a part in the Evans story four decades later .
It was John ’ s determination to go racing that prompted him to leave the Midland Racing Partnership . “ I ’ d got a nice little MG Midget and I thought the way I could get into racing was by selling my road car to fund a racing car . But to do that I needed a company car so I got a job as a salesman for the local Ford garage . That worked really well and I started off with a Formula Ford in 1969 or 1970 . I entered the same championship as Emerson Fittipaldi and Carlos Pace . That was quite overwhelming and I had an Alexis Mk15 .”
A season in Formula Ford presented a steep and valuable learning curve , but John realised the shortcomings in running his own race car . “ I did Formula Ford for a season and decided I needed to move away from it as I hadn ’ t got the knowledge that the teams had got on car set-up . I was doing it all myself . So I bought a Ginetta G4 .”
The target was the strong and popular Modified Sportscar Championship and John duly won the up to 1150cc class in the championship . “ There was Barry Wood and lots of well-known people in the 1150 class at the time . And I thoroughly enjoyed that . Then I thought I wanted to move up to the two-litre class so I sold the Ginetta .