"My first trip to Bridgehampton Race Circuit was in May of 1964 for an SCCA National race. Prior to that my auto racing experience was the occasional Friday or Saturday night at Freeport Stadium to watch the stock cars or quarter midgets run on the eighth of a mile oval. We had taken a trip out to West Hampton Drag Strip to watch Art Arfons run the Green Monster and heard fans talking about Sports car races being held out east on a road course at Bridgehampton and decided to trek out for the next event.
I had been accepted to Southampton College for the fall semester of 64 so our trip would allow me to check out the campus on the way to the track. The wonderfull thing about the Bridge was the trip there, the traffic building as you headed for Milstone road awash in cars not seen every day about town, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Lotus sevens, XK120s,40s,50s the stuff of dreams for an 18 year old. Before you saw the track you heard it. The rumble of big bore engines was carried on the breeze with screaming crescendos and staccato downshifts…..then silence…..then another car would sing its wild song……Step up folks you aint seen nothing yet the Big Show is on the inside. And so we drove in up the oil soaked dirt road around small craters here and the to the parking area…the beginning of a beautifull but much to short friendship.
My camera for the day was a Kodak instamatic. With its fixed focus and shutter speed not exactly what Jesse Alexander would opt for but to my amazement some of the images were not bad if you got lucky while panning. I remember that day we picked wild blueberrys while walking the inside of the circuit something you won’t find at today’s venues to be sure. In the years that followed I bought a 35-mm camera and improved my skills to a reasonable degree. Since I was attending college down the road a piece I was fortunate to attend many events during the 1964 to 1970 period and presently I am sorting through my old photos hoping to create my own website when I retire. The last major race I attended was the 1969 Trans Am that Mark Donahue won in a hellacious rainstorm driving a Javelin for Roger Penske.
I returned several times for regional events in the 70s and eighties still taking photos and trying to explain to my small son the marvelous noise made by 30 or so group 7 Can Am cars streaming under the Chevron Bridge. Meanwhile spec racers with MUFFLERS ye gads were humming down into turn one……it was like watching traffic on the Southern State Parkway!!! Something really special to a lot of folks had slipped away and it is greatly missed by those of us who were luky enough to make the trek out east and be transfixed by the Siren Song of real Motor Racing."
Jeffrey Payne
Deer Park New York
