When racing got real: The nail-biting early days of British touring cars

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2 days ago

Gregory was also a director at Brands Hatch, so the Kent circuit staged a trial run on Boxing Day 1957 – and, this being a success, the host to the first points-scoring BSCC round in early April 1958.
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In cold and dry weather, the first saloon race proved 'quite the most interesting of the afternoon', we reported. 'It was won almost as a foregone conclusion by Jack Sears, adding yet another victory to his string of successes with the Austin A105. But in the sub-1200cc class, tremendous battles were going on.
For 11 laps, the A35s of George 'Doc' Shepherd and John Sprinzel circled as a pair, inches apart, until finally Sprinzel managed to overtake.
'There was a second race for cars up to 1600cc and over 3500cc. The [Mk1] Jaguar 3.4s, driven by Tommy Sopwith [son of the famous plane designer] and Gawaine Baillie, again took first and second with impressive ease.'
Sprinzel and Sopwith won out again at Brands later that month, while Tommy Bridger made himself unpopular, you might assume, by topping the 1200-1600cc class in a German Borgward Isabella, 'making the most of its fine cornering'.
Sprinzel made it a hat-trick as the BSCC headed to Mallory Park in Leicestershire in May, while Baillie benefited from Sopwith's car shedding a tyre – and Harold Grace 'had a spectacular escape when he inverted his Riley 1.5 in a ditch'.