Driving Enthusiast Puts Car Designs in High Gear

Drawing pictures of hot rods and motorcycles used to earn Jim Searcy nothing but trouble in his 12th-grade English class 40 years ago. Today, it earns him a living.

Owner of a small glass decoration shop in Redondo Beach, Searcy designs trophies for automobile and motorcycle races across the country.

The awards, which sell for as much as $8,000 each, contain intricate, three-dimensional images of cars and drivers sandblasted into sheets of glass.

For Searcy, 57, of Hermosa Beach, pairing his interests in racing and art has been profitable. Last year, his one-man workshop, Champ Awards, had sales of almost $100,000.

“Motor racing has always been my love,” Searcy said. “So it kind of went hand-in-hand with my business.”

Searcy’s favorite work revolves around the sport he loves. In 1979, he made his first trophy for a sprint car race at the now-closed Ascot Park Raceway in Gardena.

Since then, Searcy has made more than 500 trophies. His latest project is a set of awards to be presented to the winners of a competition at this year’s Long Beach Grand Prix in April.

Using a technique that took 10 years to master, Searcy sandblasts detailed images into the glass with a compressor that generates 100 pounds of pressure per square inch.

The delicate process involves a good deal of risk--one mistake can ruin a piece, which typically takes 80 to 100 hours to complete.

“You just don’t have any room for error,” Searcy said. “In a painting, if you make a mistake, you can just paint over it. With glass, if you cut too far, you’ve ruined it.”