Bryants bite in the family Cobra

Gentleman Drivers

In what was to be the final year for the twin series under the management of Carol Spagg, the Gentleman Drivers GT/Sports Endurance and Sports-Racing Challenge races were supremely popular.

The original GT/Sports Endurance races continued to be massively oversubscribed as drivers rushed to contest mini-endurance races at some of the best venues in Europe. Two cars stood clear at the top of the pack, as father and son Grahame and Oliver Bryant won four times in their AC Cobra and Irvine Laidlaw/James Diffey often led the chase in their Porsche 904.

Laidlaw and Diffey topped their campaign with a fine win at Oporto, while the latter led the chase of the Frank Sytner/Simon Hadfield Cobra at Oulton Park.

Sytner/Hadfield also had a win in the Sports-Racing Challenge when they blitzed a vast field at Silverstone in Sytner’s Lola T70. Diffey teamed up with Gareth Burnett to win at Oulton Park in the latter’s Merlyn Mk4/6, while a famous win at Oporto went to the intrepid pair of Howard Redhouse and Stuart Wright in the former’s Lotus 30.