A Historic Lola T70 Will Be on Display in Bridgehampton This Weekend

Residents of the East End, who were around back in the mid-1960s, can still recall hearing the roar echoing down from the Bridgehampton Race Circuit in the hills of Noyac during events like the Can-Am races that were held at the track during its heyday.

While the track is long gone, the memories live on for racing fans of a certain age, and this weekend, some of them will get an up-close view of a car with a special pedigree: the dark blue Lola T70 that racing legend Dan Gurney drove to victory at the Bridge on September 18, 1966, during the inaugural Can-Am season.

The car, now owned by Johan Woerheide of Atlanta, will be on display at the Bridge, the invitation-only car extravaganza that takes place on Saturday, September 23, on the grounds of the Bridge golf club, which replaced the racetrack in the 1990s. For those unable to attend the Bridge event, the car will also be on display at the informal Cars & Coffee show that will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. on Sunday, September 24, on the grounds of the Bridgehampton Museum’s Corwith House.

Phillip Miller of the Miller Building Company, who is the presenting sponsor for the Lola, grew up in Amagansett. “When I was a kid, my dad was a race enthusiast, and we used to go to places like Lyme Rock and Watkins Glen two or three times a year,” he said. Plenty of weekends were spent closer to home, at the Bridge, watching drivers like Gurney, John Surtees, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Mark Donahue, and Peter Revson compete.

The Lola T70 was the creation of British carmaker Eric Broadley, who played a major role in the creation of the Ford GT40 that defeated Ferrari four years in a row at the 24 Hours of Le Mans between 1966 and 1969.

After leaving Ford, Broadley set about creating the Lola T70. The car was constructed with an aluminum chassis with a fiberglass body. Typically, an American-made V8 would be shoehorned into the car.

“They put the engine behind the driver,” Miller said. “It was the first mid-engine sports car ever.”

Most Lolas were powered by Chevrolet engines, but Gurney’s ride used a Ford block that, of course, was extensively modified and produced 520 horsepower and shaved off about 100 pounds, so the car weighed in at only 1,500 pounds. It would be the only Ford-powered car to win a Can-Am race.

“They were all experimenting, they were all innovators,” Miller said of the racing teams that competed in series like the Can-Am. “They would start the season with one car and by the end, it would be a different car as they tried different things to make them faster and lighter.”

The Lola was owned by All American Racers, a partnership of Gurney and another racing legend, Carroll Shelby.

“This is an important car in racing history,” Miller said.

Bridgehampton, of course, has a long history of car racing, with an initial series being held on public roads from 1915 through 1921. Racing on public roads was revived in 1949, but they came to an end just four years later when a practice run crash killed a driver and injured several spectators in 1953. Racing fans then formed the corporation that would develop the Bridge Race Circuit, which held its first races in 1957.

With that in mind, Miller said he would love to get permission to take the Lola on a ceremonial spin along the roads that once served as a race track. But even if that wish may be hard to fulfill, he promised to start the engine at the Coffee & Cars event, so fans could hear a little history.