story and photos by
SEARS’ SPECIAL
Tim Lewis
With a lot of hard work and help from friends, John Sears’ Malibu has been transformed into an X275 warrior.
T
here’s nothing like the satisfaction of building a car of your own. Whether it is your driver with a few mods or an all-out race car, the feeling of seeing your hard work and eff rt come together in a well-built project is second to none. John Sears has known that feeling time and time again, but his latest project is his dream car. If you’re not familiar with the name, John Sears is the man behind bringing the biggest class ever into drag radial racing, “X275,” a heads-up small tire stock-type suspension class that has gone wild of late. Built specifically for those small tire radial racers, the
class was first raced at Virginia Motorsports Park and not only are his rules used in the States, but also across the globe, even in Australia where the class is getting bigger and bigger within the Australian Pro Street Association. Along with X275, John has worked on other similar classes such as “Nitrous X” and also worked with other rule makers and series with their Outlaw class rules. Sears moved from the sunshine state of Florida to Spotsylvania, Virginia in 2007, and I may be partly to blame for that. When Sears was considering the move and asked about the area, I made sure he knew that we had a lot of tracks close by…and the weather wasn’t too
bad either! Soon after, Sears along with wife Laura made the move. And along with them came John’s 1980 Chevy Malibu. Sears has been racing for 28 years now and his interest started with a neighbor down the street who always had fast street cars and would let him hang around and learn a thing or two. Sears’ first race car was a street raced 1969 Chevelle with a small block and a hit of nitrous. The car would go into the low 10s and found its way into the action on the streets (and even onto the news when the street racing in Florida was going crazy during the mid90s). His next car would be an ’87 Buick Turbo T-Type with a
wild little 3.8 liter turbo motor. Although it was an 11-second daily driver, Sears says it was a blast to own and drive! Eventually he’d commit to track racing and acquired the Malibu that started out with a small block nitrous combo that put the car in the low 6-second zone in the 1/8th. Sears’ son Matt would come up from his home in Florida to drive the car at a few local tracks just to get some seat time, and when John eventually got his thirdgen Camaro up and running the pair would take both cars out. The Malibu suffe ed a brush with the wall during a race and would need some serious attention before it would ever see
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