bridgehampton video Formula Fords 1979

[LolaT440]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQDSmvPbcKE

I found this and someone must recognize themselves

[Tim FF19]

Was that Joe Stimola at the 12:00 minute mark?

[stonebridge20]

Was that Joe Stimola at the 12:00 minute mark?

Yep! Later in the video I think you can hear him going off on someone and drop the F bomb more than a few times.

[Bill Bonow]

Looks to be Michael Andretti leading in an '81 VD

[LolaT440]

I wonder if anyone on this board was there. It looks like heading to the grid they all piled into each other????

It looked so nice for Paul Newman. He was just hanging out. The last I drove my my car he was at LRP and pretty much was surrounded by a wall of on lookers.

If Mike recalls I had to repair my car because a rod end let go, and mike straightened some of the parts with himself and gravity. When done it was pretty late and I saw him by himself sitting in a chair outside the trailer.

I wanted to go up an say hello and see how the day went, but I thought not since this was probably the first peaceful time he had there all day.

So I never got to meet him.

[BWC54]

I wonder if anyone on this board was there.

That kind of looks like DaveW's Citation with the green and orange GoJo paint job.

At 13:27

[Maureen Harris]

Ah - memories. I was there that weekend. Signed in the whole Andretti (#55 FF) entourage (in limos) at registration, then worked T&S (during those years I was an unofficial FF "grid consultant"). Sitting in the tower looking at the oncoming field headed for the Start/Finish line, we heard "green flag"! - followed almost immediately by "RED FLAG"!!! We all looked down-track and... Oh s**t.

It was a 16 car pile up caused by a veteran driver who should have known better. Trying to move up at the start, he drove onto the right-hand (pit side) shoulder. During the drivers meeting everyone had been strongly warned by the stewards not to do that because the shoulder funneled down at pit out, then disappeared before going under the downhill bridge. Well, he ran out of road and tried to slot back in to the acelerating pack diving to the first turn. Saying it didn't work is (obviously) a gross understatement.

I'll see better details when I get home to my bigger monitor, but I think that's Ted Wenz @ about the 1:00 - 1:15 minute mark, crouched next to a car on the grid, @ the 1:35-1:40 mark, #39 is Frank Del Vecchio, @ the 1:50 mark, red 35F #4 is Joby Graham, green/orange #69 is a DaveW car, John Gimbel? blue #19 or 21, yellow #96 Frank Bernstein (short, bare chest, dark curly hair, red suit), the Raceware car with the full cage is Norm Marx, #89 Larry Cosgrove (full beard, Nomex turtleneck, with Peter Osborne in the light blue shirt), red Crossle with a yellow #6 was Peter Klein(?) and I think Drake Olson ran #22 (he can bee seen walking around the mess several times, wearing a black & white stripe polo shirt & cutoff shorts), blue #51 with the yellow/orange/red stripe is Don Nicholson. Blue car #24 is Joe Marcinski (12:05 - 13:30, Dawntreader Racing on the back of his suit), because Joby Graham & I crewed for him that weekend. Joe managed to get stopped without hitting anyone - but then 3-4 cars ran into him. I'm somewhere in that group on track, having run down from the T&S tower. Another flagger (Marianne Peet) and I picked up the front end of one FF to pivot it out of the way so they could start clearing vehicles. I recognize several workers too.

My other memory of that event is two crew guys leaning against the guardrail amidst the broken cars leaking fuel and other fluids. One pulled a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, lit up, flicked the used match on the ground, looked around, and said: "Good thing there wasn't a fire." Uh....

If no one else chimes in by the time I get home from work tonight, I'll see who else I can identify.

EDIT: Just watched it again and I think I spotted myself! At 14:48, that might be me walking in front of white Crossle' 30F #93 (I should know who that is because that's the car I helped move!) in a red tank top, red visor & jeans.

[gfastr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQDSmvPbcKE

I found this and someone must recognize themselves

George "GeeDub" Henderson told me the Formula Ford footage at the end of the video (with the big pile-up) was an AFFA Pro Race, held at the end of the day, after the SCCA National races.

[Maureen Harris]

Forgot about that part - thanks!

AFFA = American Formula Ford Assocation, by Bill Claren

http://www.lsracers.com/Articles/fil...L%20CLAREN.pdf

http://www.everythingstockcar.com/58...ar-driver.html

[Doug Fisher]

This is a great video. I did not drive in this event, but do remember hearing about it. Looking back to the pro race, am glad i wasn't......but I digress. Its great to see the very large grids, and would love to all those F-Fords starting a race again.

[Gokart Mozart]

Fantastic footage! If PLN can wear short shorts with his chicken legs, I think I can scare the grid in '13...

The FF footage is fabulous, really neat to see the 'new' cars of the era going like mad.

-Jacques

[DaveW]

That kind of looks like DaveW's Citation with the green and orange GoJo paint job.

At 13:27

Hmmmmm.....

That had to be Gim Chin in my Zink Z10 after I sold it to him in 1980 or 1981. He ran my colors for a while. I also don't think I ever ran #69.

There was a huge wreck in an AFFA race with me in it, but I was in the Z16 by then, so that had to be 1980 or more likely, 1981. That was the race that had Michael Andretti in it.

I didn't have that much damage in that wreck - only a bent rear wheel. We would have been able to resume if we had not run into the track curfew.

I didn't run the National earlier in the day. I had qualified on the pole for the AFFA race, but I had a slipping clutch and dropped back several positions on the start because I didn't want to totally lose the clutch slipping it on the start. The wreck (just after the start) was caused by someone moving over on me from the right (I was the meat in a sandwich) and rubbing his LR tire on my RF. That caused him to veer left and then all heck broke loose.

[DaveW]

That video really brings back some great memories!

On a related subject, Bridgehampton was one of my all-time favorite tracks, especially after I got the Z16. The decreasing-radius entry to the light-bulb turn was my favorite part of the track. Every one else had to back off before the curving entry, or they would spin. With the Z16 it was flat-out until the light-bulb itself. Just that one area was worth almost a second per lap over every other car.

Turns 1 & 2 were real tests of one's "attachments." Almost the whole track was a challenge in one way or another.

[John Merriman]

Yeah, Dave, it certainly was a challenge!! The first time I ran down the hill into One - and in a pretty sizable field - it seemed like we were all just driving off a cliff. And hey, it actually became a "fiscal cliff" for some too. ( Imagine that....thirty three years ago.) And another thing: with EMRA and RCCA we ran it counter clockwise sometimes - that 'track' was called "Laguna Bays". Did the same at Summit and Bryar too.

[Tom Valet]

It really is a crime that Bridghampton wasnt able to be saved despite everything that was done by so many people to overcome all the obstacles thrown at it by the local government and residents. The best part for me was that the track was only a little more than half an hour from my house.

It is now a private golf club with the various straights making up some of the holes. Part of the track is still there. The golf club, called The Bridge, is reportedly one of if not the most exclusive clubs in the country with an entry fee of something like half a million dollars and only a handful of admitted members. My next door neighbor's son who was NY State golf champ in high school works there as a caddie.

The irony is that after the local residents managed to close down the track they then protested the golf club because of the pesticides and wanted the track back!

The video perfectly captures the whole essence of Bridgehampton--an awesome racetrack and nothing else, zero amenities. Except for the track itself nothing was paved, all the infield and paddock was sand and all of the runoff areas were sand. God forgive you slid off the track in a high speed area (basically anywhere on the track) your wheels would dig into the sand and a barrel-rolling you would go. The F1 tracks that added gravel traps should have learned from the Bridge that sand in a runoff area is not a good idea.

That video really brings back some great memories!


Turns 1 & 2 were real tests of one's "attachments." Almost the whole track was a challenge in one way or another.

The video is great but it is a shame that there is no footage of Turns 1 & 2. The speeds through that turn were insane. You would come onto the straight at a fairly good clip already, then have a 1/2 mile straight to gain more speed and then the track sent you downhill at the end of the straight for even more speed. There were always a ton of spectators at Turn 1 and you knew that they knew if you were lifting. I never made it through Turn 1 flat (in my RX-7) but never had the chance to try in a formula car (most likely I still would have lifted!).

Someone above mentioned Big George Henderson, pretty sure he is in the video too on the track after the wreck. Funny thing is that GW's son and my sons later raced karts together at Westhampton, we used to joke that it was a miniature version of the Bridge--just a big sand pit with nothing but the track and nobody cared because the track was fast and fun. Sadly the kart track (and drag strip next door) are also gone for the same reasons that Bridghampton closed.

[Dennis Valet]

ask and you shall receive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p3DAQ2osuY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezbc...e=results_main

[Tom Valet]

Funny story, the first time I went to the track was for an EMRA track day in my street car, we enter through the gates, drive up one of the dirt roads but have no idea where we are going, no signs of course. We get to the track access bridge that is seen in the videos, take one look at it and say there's no way we are going across that thing, it looked like it was ready to fall down on its own. I backed up and was driving around looking for the "real" entrance to the track when I see a toter home and trailer going across the bridge. Oh i guess that is the way into the track! All the years we went there I never liked crossing that bridge.

[DaveW]

ask and you shall receive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p3DAQ2osuY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezbc...e=results_main

As exciting and complex as the track looked in the the 3p3DAQ... video above, it does not remotely convey the thrill that I got driving it. A close-to-perfect lap there in a FF was a real accomplishment!

[Dennis Valet]

As exciting and complex as the track looked in the the 3p3DAQ... video above, it does not remotely convey the thrill that I got driving it. A close-to-perfect lap there in a FF was a real accomplishment!

I am sure! Things always look slower than they feel.

[DaveW]

As the title says...

[stonebridge20]

[quote]

The video is great but it is a shame that there is no footage of Turns 1 & 2.

Tom, I have quite a bit of video from Bridgehampton including some 2 wide under the bridge into T1 of my old March 78B Atlantic. I need to figure out how to get it from super 8 and mini 8 to digital and I would be more than happy to post it up to youtube.

BTW: Yes,......flat every time through T1 and T2

[Tom Valet]

Mike, would love to see those videos, an Atlantic flat through the downhill must have been something, I cant imagine what that must have been like in the car, and yes as Dave says the in-car video does not give any idea of just how fast and difficult that track was.

I recently found some old 8mm home movies in my attic, my wife took them to Costco, their photo department transferred the film to a CD disc, cost was about $20 per reel (they charge by the foot of film).

[AlanVDW]

I'll never forget flagging at station 4, the bottom of the hill, seeing Formula Atlantics come down, flat out.
The left handed downhill into station 9 before the lightbulb was impressive too.

Somewhere, on ApexSpeed or YouTube, there's a video of a FF hot lap. Maybe Dennis Macchio (?) when he was track manager.

[KevinFirlein]

and now you know why Stimola and I were like brothers ) "this is f--kin' riduculus, holdin a race a on a f--kin dangerous track like this. ridiculous. " tell us how you really feel Joe !

Was also present at a race at Lime Rock where Gimbel got hooked and made the trees at turn 1 lap 1 after starting from pole. Joe somehow made it to the T1 fence and was waiting on the offending driver and laid into him all the way back to the paddock. Just followed along going after him. My dad followed behind in case Joe completely lost his cool and he had to jump in, he had already offered his testimony , as a multi NeDiv champion to John Gimbel if he wanted to protest.

[tstiles]

As a former golf course developer , I can see why the golf developers were drooling over that piece of real estate. Too bad somebody didn't figure out how to blend
racing / golf / residential / commercial

Isn't this close to the world famous Pine Valley Golf Club ?

BTW : You guys that raced there were brave ... all that sand to roll a car ... nothing to keep a car out of the trees ... I guess I'm just soft

Great piece of video , Thanks for posting it

[ric baribeault]

My memory is pretty bad but I think that was '81. I was there that weekend but without my car. Easily my favorite track ever. We ran it CCW a few times and T5/6 backwards was much more interesting than T1 CW. I did try T9 flat once in my RP31. Needless to say I never tried it again.

[AlanVDW]

Had to be around '81. Inboard shocks on some of the fronts only.

Me at the Bridge in '82 or 83.

[RussMcB]

1980 at the earliest. The first Ralt RT-4 model was 1980 (I think), and the Bob Sharp 280-ZXR race car was a '79 or '80 body style.

I have always been grateful that I had the chance to race there. In addition to the great track, I enjoy the memory of riding the ferry (with the race rig) from CT. I also remember a clutch change there at night with flashlights and sand blowing everywhere.

[Frank C]

I think the yellow #7 Van Diemen RF81 shown leaving the "grid" before the crash near the end of the video was being driven by R. Cusamano. I bought the car in Atlanta in '87 and it had the original log book, which listed an AFFA Pro Race 4/25/81 (where?), and races at Bridgehampton 6/27-28/81 and 9/11/81. I think Frank Del Vecchio in CT has the car. I only got to Bridgehampton to watch the CanAm race in 1968. Quite a track! From the video, it doesn't look much safer in '81 than it was in '68.
- Frank Chambers
Doug Carter's nice picture of Frank Del Vecchio in the RF81 at the FF40th in 2009. What were you driving in '81, Frank?

[Sean Gallagher]

Bridgehampton was the best. Nothing but Good Times!
I ran CF with EMRA and RCCA from '81 to '93 as the Bridge was the home track for both clubs. The first topic at every drivers meeting there was "DO NOT Pass On The Right At The Start!" Nobody did.
I have some Bridge tapes from "87 CF races I need to convert to digital.

[KevinFirlein]

it was definitely 81 as that was the year Michael ran the Starbrite 81 VanDiemen and Mario wanted to kill Michael Roe at the Runoffs.

Good times probie, good times.

[RussMcB]

... and Mario wanted to kill Michael Roe at the Runoffs.

I'd like to hear more about that (if it isn't a thread hijack). It sounds like an interesting story.

[Frank Del Vecchio]

This was the AFFA race at the end of the day after the Nationals. If memory is correct, it was Frank Bernstein that got turned or bumped and turned sideways in front of the field. Only two cars made it through - myself and Scott Goodyear (that Scott Goodyear). Took too long to clear the mess and the race was cancelled. I still have the yellow 81 Van Dieman - body is white now.

[KevinFirlein]

long story short Russ, Roe was 2nd, Andretti 3rd and Andretti couldnt get past. Last lap under the bridge andretti tries and gets door firmly slammed then coming down the hill Roe pushed him all the way to the drivers right to make sure Andretti couldnt get inside of turn 12. Back then all of this was just par for the course and fair game, basically what the rest of the paddock called FF racing and why they flocked to the fence lines to watch it. Well when P1-P3 were stopped in front of the podium and got out of their cars Mario charged Roe and had to be held back from throwing punches.

Bottom line is Andretti had hired Bertil Roos to look after Mike they had bought 3 different chassis, VD, PRS, Lola for different tracks and they got beat handily as P1 was down the road. Mario did himself no favors in front of a very large crowd that day. I am sure he didnt lose any sleep mind you.

now back to the Bridge.

[LolaT440]

The internet is amazing. To hear these stories.

I drove at Bridgehampton only once in a street car with the RCCA's GT division. I heard it was closing and just wanted to experience the track I heard so much about.

In my reading there was some talk of how you take turn 1 and 2 flat out in a can am car or something.

Well in my Mitsubishi Eclipse I exited the light bulb and decided I would never get another chance at this. It was a long straight and had plenty of time to rehearse it in my mind.

With only about 1.5 hours of track experience I gave it a try. Needless to say it did not go well. How the car did not roll over in the sand I don't know. But I still had 4 wheels and eyes , interior , everything full of sand.

Aj Pugliese of RCCA yanked me off the track and gave me an education.

[BURKY]

Who is driving the car at 1:20 that say's D' agostino?




Mike

[AlanVDW]

I have so many stories from the bridge. The Vee in the evergreen tree, with no damage. The FF I left at the inside of the lightbulb because the driver refused to let the tow truck guy lift it from the roll hoop and scratch the polished aluminum. He was delaying the schedule and the stewards then had a "talk" with him. The Sprite that landed ON THE FLAG STATION at the bottom of the downhill. The FA that spun on the cool off lap after I waved to him. Sand in everything. I still have a jar of it.

[Peter Olivola]

At the final NEDiv National of the 1975 season I had finally gotten the overheating problem solved on the 1300 Twin Cam Ted Wenz built for the Elva Mk 7 I bought from him. I didn't get the exhaust system fixed despite Ted's best efforts and the car very nearly made me deaf. Not in the Matra category of loud. More like harmonic dissonance.

During qualifying I exited the Lighbulb some distance behind a fast Mini (I really have limited patience for anyone complaining about racing in mixed run groups) and overtook him at 12A just at the crest of the hill. Big mistake. I didn't leave enough room. My left rear contacted his right front. I spun counter clockwise, flipped when I hit the sand and slid to a stop backwards just shy of the corner station.

Fortunately, Ted had installed a sturdy wing which conveniently dug a nice hole that kept me from being decapitated. Also, all the fluid check valves worked perfectly. No leaks of any kind. By feel, because there was absolutely no light as I was hanging by the belts upside down, I found the kill switch and shut everything down.

The corner crew tried to right the car, but it was dug in too deeply and they started to back away figuring I was dead. The NY Region Fire and Rescue Chief, Chris Lewis got there and started digging a tunnel under the side of the car to get to me. When he broke through I shouted the second most famous words in racing, "Get me the f*ck out of here!" Released my belts and dropped about 2 ft onto my helmet, chipping a tooth (which was eventually replaced with a prosthetic 30 years later,) the only injury suffered in the whole thing.

After loading the remains on the trailer and while sitting in the tow car, Janet Guthrie came over and handed me an open can of creme soda. "I really hate creme soda," I said morosely. "Trust me, you'll like this one," she said. I took a healthy swallow. Now this was before the final checker of the day, but that was my first, and the only one I ever enjoyed, Coors.

The body was scrap. Ted repaired the left rear. The engine and trans were parted out. After thoroughly cleaning the frame with a hose, I sold it frame to someone in New England. I met him just over the border from Massachusetts in a rest stop. Having purchased a clapped out Winkelmann FF from Fast Company in Marblehead I wanted to do the whole thing in one trip from Nyack, NY. When we lifted the frame off the trailer to transfer it to his trailer there was a coating of Bridgehampton sand on the trailer, shaken out of the frame during the trip.

[FVRacer21]

I was sitting in the first turn, you heard the start and then nothing........eventually we walked back and saw the CARnage.

I think the comments about the track at the end were from Ric Hiland.

I also cannot believe it was over 30 years ago - and my FV was built that year!

I love Lime Rock and the Glen, but when you pulled out of pit lane at Bridgehampton you knew you were on a racing track - I have never gotten that feeling anywhere else.

Chris Zarzycki

[stonebridge20]

I love Lime Rock and the Glen, but when you pulled out of pit lane at Bridgehampton you knew you were on a racing track - I have never gotten that feeling anywhere else.

Chris Zaraycki

Ditto !