The Chicane

In our ‘Lost Tracks’ series, we’ve already examined the demise of ‘The Bridge’, the purpose built track designed to replace the increasingly dangerous road course at Bridgehampton. But let us look back to the simpler, county road course in Bridgehampton.

We were first inspired to start looking into America’s forgotten racetracks by the Last Open Road series of books, which follow the exploits of auto mechanic Buddy Palumbo as he enters the early years of America’s road-racing scene. The first race we get to experience alongside Buddy, is the 1952 race on the streets of Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York.

There Buddy glimpses some of the finest racing machinery in the world, and is immediately hooked. Pulled into road racing by the adventure embodied in the Briggs Cunningham cars, the Ferraris, the little Porsches, and Siatas. But also sees the dangers of racing amongst crowds of poorly protected spectators, varying road conditions, curbs and bridge abutments. Ultimately these are the factors that killed road racing on city streets and drove racers to closed circuits—killing a good chunk of the romance of racing along with it.

The real Bridgehampton of 1952 was indeed a popular, community led affair. Sponsored by the local Lions club and the SCCA, there were 5 featured races: The Sagaponack Trophy Race for production cars under 1500cc, the Mecox Trophy race (modified 1500cc), the Hamptons Cup (production over 1500cc), the Bridgehampton (modified over 1500cc), and the Hayground Cup race (anything goes).

There was quite a turnout of machinery for the race in ‘52. Porsche 356s dominated the sub-1500cc categories, with the exception of Frank Bott’s OSCA, which took the modified class averaging 74mph. Today’s speed limit on Bridge Ln. (the longest straight) is 40mph.

The Briggs Cunningham team was there, debuting the C4R, sadly it dropped a wheel in the 12th lap. Leaving the Ferraris, Allards, and Jags to battle it out in the high displacement laps around town.

Which brings us to the course itself. From the start finish line on Ocean Rd, the course wraps around the 4 miles created by Ocean Rd., Sagaponack Rd., Main St., and Bridge Ln. Here is a map of the current location. I wouldn’t go blasting around the course too fast in your 4 Liter Ferrari (the winning car of the ‘52 Bridgehampton Cup) too fast. But if you do, send me some photos. or a video!

It’s easy to see why B.S. Levy chose to set the stage for Buddy Palumbo to fall in love with sportscars and road racing at this particular race. The race reports show it to have been a fantastic grouping of cars very early in American road racing. You’d very likely go your whole life without seeing a ferrari on the road, but if you were on Long Island that weekend, you saw 5 of them.

Additional Reading:
There is a surprisingly large amount of information on the web about the 1952 race at Bridgehampton.
• Lewis Shadoff has an absolutely brilliant series of color photos shot at the race here. This is where I found the photo at the top of this post.
• The mighty Etceterini has some scans from Road & Track on the race.
• Arte Auto is selling this copy of the official program.

I haven’t been able to confirm this anywhere online - which is surprising given the number of ‘Save the Banking‘ sites and petitions that exist online - but Vintage Racecar Journal reports in their March issue that a deal has been struck between Monza’s ruling body the SIAS and the Monza city council that will guarantee the survival of the Monza banking. According to the article, the deal stipulates that the raised sections of the autodrome must be rebuilt within 5 years; not just preserving them, but restoring the banking to it’s former glory. Will we see race action on the banking again?

I sure hope so.

Following up on our last classic track piece on the Bridgehampton road circuit, let’s look at another track featured in the Last Open Road series of books. The Brynfan Tyddn road course saw action from 1952-56. “Brynfan Tyddn” is Welsh for “Large Farm on the Hilltop”, and consisted of a winding road around T. Nowell Wood’s 690 acre lake house estate. The race was an offshoot of a long running hillclimb event, the “Giant’s Despair”.

The running gag about the course in the book is how dangerous and tight the course is, despite it’s 3.5 mile track length. Looking at photos from the era, it’s not hard to see why. The road surface looked like crumbling asphalt barely a lane and a half wide, and looks more like a golf-cart track than a racing circuit - even in the days of back country racing of the early ’50s. Despite these shortcomings, the track drew huge numbers of fans and some interesting racers and cars. Carrol Shelby won this race in 1956 driving a Ferrari 500 Testa Rossa in what would be the last race for the course due to a track fatality.

But the 2.5 liter Ferrari’s win seems to have been an exception at Brynfan Tyddn as the course was historically dominated by smaller displacement racers: Keifts, Porsches, MGs, Siatas, and OSCAs. In fact, in the earliest years of the race, cars were limited to 1900cc engines. Perhaps maintaining the lower displacement rules would have kept the ‘56 race safer and would have seen many more years circling Mr. Wood’s property.

Like the bulk of the road courses of the ’50s, the roads are still there, here’s a link to a Google map of the roads that made up the course, along with an approximate location of the start finish line. If you head out there, send me a photo.

Further Reading:

Also worth checking out is this scan of a 1952 Road & Track report from that summer’s outing.

You can buy prints of Carrol Shelby’s race and a brace of MGs from Wheels on Walls. Lots of great racing prints available there to cover your garage with.

Finally, here’s a lovely history of the races, complete with several records and other race results.

In the first of what I hope to make a long series here on the Chicane, let’s take a look at the sadly defunct track at Bridgehampton.

I’ve recently been plowing through the marvelous Last Open Road series of books by B.S. Levy. The series follows a young small-town auto mechanic as he throws himself headlong into the burgeoning sportscar racing scene of the early 1950s. We get to see through Buddy’s eyes the first race he attends at the street course in Bridgehampton, NY.

Bridgehampton hosted auto races on its streets since 1915. Following a fatal crash at Watkin’s Glen in 1952, the state of New York put a quick end to street racing on state highways. A group of enthusiasts, however, came together in 1953 and purchased a 550 acre plot of land that would ultimately house the 13 turn, 2.85 mile course.

A parcel of land that is now a golf course.

Here’s a Google maps screen grab of the current golf course with the track map laid over it; they’ve actually preserved a few turns and part of the main straight. Here are some photos of the site as it exists today. Follow that link to see some shots of the main straight, the blind 1st turn, and the Chevron bridge over the track. At least they didn’t make the whole thing a damn putting green.

Photos of the track in it’s heyday abound online, here are just a few:
Alfa discussion forum member Lowmileage collected a few in this thread.
Here’s a set on fotki. (lots of Can-Am era shots here).
Here’s pbraun’s set on Flickr.

On the bright side, there was some effort to maintain the track as late as 1999, as this New York Times article points out. It’s a good read for a quick introduction to the track and some of the legal wrangling that happens when people move to a neighborhood that has a long-established race track and then decide that race tracks are too loud.