Jack’s father, Jeff, saw it, too. Jeff owned a 1988 Porsche 911, and Jack was in awe.
“Just growing up around my dad, that’s really all I needed to fall in love with racing,” Jack said.
Jeff asked his son a question that solidified Jack’s ambitious drive to want to compete on a racetrack.
“‘Hey, do you want to ride this small go-kart?’” Jack recalled.
The small kart was from the 1950s, but Jack, who was just 5 years old at the time, said, “Sure. Let’s go.”
“My first day on a racetrack wasn’t the best,” Jack laughed.
He mixed up the gas and brake pedals, which resulted in his first crash.
“I was really short,” Jack said. “I had to get a red brake pedal block and a green gas pedal block so I wouldn’t mix them up again.”
Jack competed annually in two races for the next several years — one at G & J Kartway in Preble County and another at Fremont Raceway Park near Sandusky.
“It just kind of grew from there,” he said. “I just kept doing those races every year, but I didn’t really take it too seriously. I was just wanting to have a good time with my dad.”
After a few novice-level wins, that’s when Jack became more and more invested.
“I think I was ready to take the next step.”
A RACING FAMILY
Sullivan is a fourth-generation racer stemming back all the way to his great-grandfather Jack E. Sullivan — whom he was named after.
“I don’t know if I found racing or if racing found me,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan’s great-grandfather was a World War II pilot and later a test pilot for the US Air Force, where he spent his spare time racing go-karts with other pilots.
Sullivan said his great-grandfather bought go-karts for his two sons — Sullivan’s grandfather Jon and his great-uncle Terry.
That later led to Sullivan’s father racing vintage karts, which then led to Sullivan himself showing interest.
Modern karting came into the scene in 2017 for Sullivan, a Hanover Township resident, Talawanda High School senior and student at Miami University.
He started operating an LO206 engine kart, which is slower but teaches good race craft, according to Sullivan.
“That’s around the time I met my good buddy, Thomas Schrage,” Sullivan said. “He taught me how to drive. If I had never met him, I probably wouldn’t have the coaching I needed and still be in go-karts.”
The bond with Schrage has helped Sullivan to this day. Sullivan admitted that Schrage is one step ahead of him regarding track knowledge and said he’s benefited greatly from it.
“I told him, ‘I want to do everything that you’re doing but one year after you,’” Sullivan said. “So far that’s kind of what we’ve been doing.”
Sullivan is right.
Schrage won the 2022 Team USA Scholarship, which is a scholarship program that allows young American racecar drivers to compete outside of the United States.
Each year, a competition is used to select the best young racecar drivers in the US and enter them into highly competitive racing events typically in Europe.
“Thomas was the first one from Ohio to win that scholarship,” Sullivan said of his friend from Bethel. “I’ve gotten a lot of help from him.”
The two moved up in the karting ranks and eventually got X30 engines.
“We were doing about 75 (mph) on those karts,” Sullivan said. “It was pretty wild. I heard from the scale of karting that it’s comparable to an IndyCar going around a track at 230 miles per hour.
“It really teaches you how fast pace everything is before you get into cars. When you get into cars, everything sort of slows back down.”
Sullivan continued to expand his experience, so in 2020, he entered racing school.
“My dad told me if I wouldn’t have driven so fast in racing school, then he would have never bought me the car,” Sullivan said. “But I drove well.”
Jeff purchased Jack his first F1600 Formula Ford racecar. Jack competed in club events and a couple very small races before advancing to the Formula Race Promotions pro series.
“In the third race of my second event, which was six races in, I was able to pick up my first win,” Sullivan said. “Against all odds, with our team having an incredibly small budget — it’s just me and my dad. It was pretty remarkable to achieve that.
“I was ready for more.”
A SUCCESSFUL SEASON
Sullivan has racked up five wins and eight podiums in 2023.
“With a small budget, compared to people who are spending up to five times as much as us,” Sullivan said, “it’s pretty remarkable.”
Sullivan’s recent success landed him with Jeremy Shaw, who founded the Team USA Scholarship in 1990.
In August, Shaw sent four scholarship winners an email inviting them to the Polecat Training Center in Lynchburg, Tenn., because of their recent success in the FRP Formula 1600 Championship Series.
Sullivan was one of them.
He competed against the other three recipients — including Ayrton Houk of McCordsville, Ind., — in mixed racing conditions.
“It was rainy, extremely competitive and super close,” Sullivan said. “All four of us were within a tenth of a second or so in a two-minute lap. That’s incredible.
“They couldn’t decide who was going to win it. We had to do some essays and videos to see what our off-track skills looked like compared to what we could do on track. I guess that’s when Ayrton and I excelled.”
Sullivan became just the second racer from Ohio to win the scholarship. He joined Schrage on that list, along with well-known racers AJ Allmendinger and Josef Newgarden.
“Now, here I am, sitting in my bedroom of an Airbnb in the UK.”
RACING IN THE UK
It’s been two weeks since Sullivan has been in England. He expects to be there for 45 days — from when he landed in Heathrow near London on Sept. 23 until Nov. 7 when he leaves to come home.
He’s got a lot planned with his teammate, Houk — from touring to sightseeing.
“But I hope to bring home some hardware and a couple of trophies,” Sullivan said. “I think the biggest part of all of this is the entirely new network of connections I’ll be exposed to on an international stage.
“I’ll have an opportunity to grow my fanbase — meet a whole lot of people that could potentially help me down the line and raise my value to any future partners. You need to have good results to back yourself up before going into a sponsor interview or anything like that.”
In the first week, Sullivan went to a shop to get fitted in his car and familiarize himself with his overseas team. He was able to walk around for a few hours, play mini-golf and a round of bowling at two different arcades.
“It was nice to relax a little because we knew the next few weeks ahead of us would be really busy,” Sullivan said.
A trip to Silverstone was on the schedule, and he watched the British Touring Car Championship, Porsche Carrera Cup Britain, Porsche Cayman Cup and the Caterham Cup.
“The races were all great, with cars side by side at Brooklands (racetrack) every single lap,” Sullivan said. “We were able to see all of these in the wet and in the dry.”
Next was a trip to the museum which had F1 cars driven by Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Mika Hakkinen, Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button.
“It was surreal to see these cars in person,” Sullivan said, “and even better to have seen them at such a legendary and historical track.”
Sullivan recently had his first test in the Ammonite Formula Fords at Llandow Circuit in southern Wales.
“We clocked in 143 laps, 10 practice starts and got the feel for the cars in both damp and dry conditions,” he said.
Sullivan said the test day gave him plenty of confidence going into the warmup races at Silverstone for the last round of the BRSCC Formula Ford Championship, which took place Sept. 29-30.
He competed in the Castle Combe Formula Ford race this past weekend and is gearing up for the prestigious Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch ib Oct. 18-22 and the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone Nov. 1-5.
“The end goal is to make myself more valuable,” Sullivan said. “This is going to do that — there’s no doubt.
“I’m forever in debt to my dad for what he’s given me through the years and to Jeremy Shaw for giving me a chance to be in this position.
“Without everyone’s support, the extent of my racing would be on a simulator or a go-kart.”
But now there are bigger races on the horizon for the kid from small-town Hanover Township.
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