• The early years: daredevils on country roads

New York 's internationally-celebrated sports car racing circuit, once described by England 's World Champion Sir Stirling Moss as "the most challenging course in the States", was the product of 95 years of sports car racing on New York ’s Long Island .

Bridgehampton first saw action in 1915, when the annual Firemen's Fair brought a pack of very slow and smoky race cars to Montauk Highway . Decades later, a hero pilot returning from World War II with an MG TC, Bruce Stevenson of Sagaponack helped give birth to modern sports car racing all across America when he revived the Bridgehampton road racing tradition in 1949.

The post-war Bridgehampton Sports Car Races on the narrow country lanes abutting the Atlantic Ocean attracted an array of New York celebrities, the metropolitan press corps, the best America 's race drivers equipped with the newest European sports cars, and hordes of spectators. During the next five years, the race entry lists grew from 58 cars to more than 180 and the spectator count increased from 10,000 to 40,000. The excitement and international flair of these competitions fit perfectly into the sophisticated playground image that was blossoming in "The Hamptons".

“CAR HITS 3 SPECTATORS, ROAD RACE IS CANCELED”, headlined the New York Herald Tribune on May 24, 1953 . With a series of spectacular accidents, the death knell was sounded for racing on the public roads of Bridgehampton. The demise of street racing was caused when a competitor swerved to avoid a spectator chasing his wayward hat across the roadway. With racing speeds exceeding 130 mph and crowds scattered over the four-mile length of the circuit, snow fences and hay-bale barriers had clearly become inadequate to contain the fast-evolving sport.

• A new idea: a purpose-built road racing circuit

That fateful summer of 1953, a rare melding of captains of industry and urbane New Yorkers came together with local merchants, farmers and shade-tree mechanics to begin planning America 's first purpose built road racing circuit. The Bridgehampton Road Races Corporation (BRRC) was authorized to issue stock on November 30, 1953 . Its officers were local businessmen and the Board of Directors included representatives from the Motor Sports Club of America, Sports Car Club of America and Long Island Sports Car Association plus the larger-than-life proprietor of the Long Island Automotive Museum , Henry Austin Clark Jr.

The directors immediately began searching for an appropriate site for the new circuit. An uninhabited hilltop on the north slope of the glacial ridge west from Sag Harbor looked promising. Known as "the backwoods", these lands were granted to local settlers by King James II as part of a Royal Charter in 1685 and were later parceled out to nearby farmers for hunting and foraging. The site of the future Bridgehampton Race Circuit still retained ancient Indian spear-points and an extensive network of Indian hunting trails.