John Mc Cormack, formally from Burnie, established an international reputation as an accomplished racing driver during the 1960s and 1970s as well as turning his knowledge and skill to designing winning sports sedans.

During an illustrious racing career John won Australia’s premier circuit racing title, the Gold Star, three times the New Zealand GP twice and scored numerous wins in sports sedans. John started his racing career in a Nota open wheeler in Tasmania and that was followed by a Brabham BT4 Climax, in which he scored numerous successes, including top 10 finishes in the 1966 and 1967 Australian Drivers Championship. He also won the Tasmanian Hillclimb Championship in 1966 and the Victorian Road Racing Championship at Phillip Island in 1970, in an Elfin Climax. A move to the Garry Cooper-designed and built Formula 5000 Elfin MR5 Repco Holden in 1971 proved to be very successful with John winning the first of three ADC titles in 1973, after finishing third in 1972. John also enjoyed success in the Tasman series with second place in 1973 and fourth in 1974 before switching to the Leyland powered Elfin MR6 during 1974. The highlight of his Tasman series campaigns was winning the 1973 and 1974 New Zealand Grands Prix in an Australian-designed and built car against top international competition. After campaigning open wheelers for a number of years John turned his attention to sports sedans and pioneered the configuration still used at this time of a mid-mounted engine with a transaxle rear end. The car was a Valiant Charger, fitted with a Repco Holden F5000 engine, and it not only established John’s engineering skills, but carried him to dominant wins in 1974 and 1975 and a win in the prestigious Toby Lee Sports Sedan series in 1974. John continued to race open wheelers and in 1975 won his second ADC driving the Repco Holden powered Elfin MR6 and backed that up with a third place the following year in a locally developed Leyland powered ex-Formula One McLaren M23.The highlight of the 1977 season was John’s third win in the ADC in the McLaren.  Following the success of the Valiant Charger, which was sold to Tasmanian Don Elliott in 1976, John developed a V12-powered Jaguar XJS sports sedan which carried him to fourth place in the 1980 Australian title. Unfortunately the ultimate potential of the Jaguar was never fully realised as John was forced into retirement after a serious road crash while travelling to compete in the 1980 Australian GP. The Jaguar was sold to Queenslander Mark Trenoweth and further developed, achieving great success in the hands of Trenoweth and Gary Scott before being retired in 1991. John was also inducted to the Tasmanian Sporting Hall of Fame in 2009. John McCormack was an outstanding driver and a brilliant engineer whose career was sadly cut short when he still had a great deal to offer the sport. At the time of induction he was living in retirement at Binalong Bay on Tasmania’s East Coast.