Bridgehampton - An Appreciation -  by Steve Smith:
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Bridgehampton was probably the greatest of all the post-war U.S. tracks.  Its only competition: Riverside (the Esses and Turn Six were fabulous; the rest of the track was a bore), Elkhart Lake (beautiful...but little more than drag races between bog-simple corners), Road Atlanta (a great circuit...until the Can-Am cars started doing back flips--"blowovers"--and they had to emasculate it), Lime Rock (another beautiful setting, but a one- or two-gear track), and the pre-Boot Watkins Glen (gorgeous, but with only a handful of turns).

"The Bridge," built in 1957 after road racing was kicked off NY's public highways, was a lot like Zandvoort--a very fast, challenging circuit draped over sand dunes with a lovely view of the sea.  Not that drivers spent much time admiring the view.  There were 13 turns in six groups (the two downhills, the run down into Echo Valley, climbing the hill behind the pits, the long series of downhill asymmetrical lefts, the climbing hairpin, the the last two turns before the uphill straight), and you were busy every minute of every lap.

Bridgehampton separated the real racers from the wannabes.  I stood in awe as Walt Hansgen, in John Mecom's rear-engined Scarab, swept over the hill at the end of the straight without lifting and with a faint flick of the wrist, arrowed through the first two downhill turns in an impeccable arc that brought him to the very edge of the pavement...and within millimeters of the line he'd carved there the lap before.

I also watched Ken Miles, Bob Holbert and Bob Bondurant in 427 Cobras powerslide up the hill behind the pits and bellow down the other side in a formation as tight as the Blue Angels.  (And watched Cale Yarborough, Lee Roy Yarbrough and Richard Petty repeat the stunt in thundering stock cars.)  And watched an unflappable Jim Hall gun the first of the winged Chapparals up the climbing hairpin without a trace of wheelspin.  And watched John Fitch and Bob Grossman put 25 hours on one of Briggs Cunningham's 1960 Corvettes destined for Le Mans. 

I tried to master the course myself (I did hundreds of laps there in street cars testing for Car and Driver, a lot more laps in an EP Porsche Speedster in SCCA races, and a few laps in a Formula Atlantic), but neither I nor any of the other legions of amateur racers ever came close to the mastery and grace of the really great drivers who prevailed there.  It's like riding a horse: anybody can do it, but few can do it well.

After literally years in the making, Lou Magyar (whose Norisring is a classic) has finally released his recreation of "The Bridge," and it's as close to the real deal as any track in GPL.  As my friend John said in another context, "It is as it was."

--Steve Smith


Interesting fact:
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Before he was a Formula 1 driver, Mario Andretti came to road racing at the 'Bridge in a Ferrari 275P, where he raced against the likes of Walt Hansgen, Jim Hall, Pedro Rodriguez, Hap Sharp and Skip Barber.  The September 19, 1965 USRRC (United States Road Racing Championship) race at the 'Bridge was Mario's first attempt at road racing.  He had a DNF that day, but went on to become one of the best known 'American' racers of our time.

General Install Info:
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If the track installs, but you get a "Could Not Load Track" error, simply go to the "c:\sierra\gpl\tracks\bhampton" folder and rename the file "dat" to "bhampton.dat" and the track should load.

This release contains a special file to allow GEM+ to more easily access the track.  To use this feature, copy the file "tgem.ini" from the zip archive to the "c:\sierra\gpl\tracks\bhampton" folder after install.

If the install totally fails, add as follows:

create folder in c:\sierra\gpl\tracks called 'bhampton'
unzip all files in the archive to c:\sierra\gpl\tracks\bhampton folder

rename the 'dat' file to 'bhampton.dat'

move the rpy file to the c:\sierra\gpl\replay folder and rename bridgehampton.rpy

edit c:\sierra\seasons\67season.ini and (optional) c:\sierra\seasons\gp.ini by adding the following:

[EventXX]
name=Long Island Grand Prix
shortname=The Bridge
trackDirectory=bhampton
month=9
day=21
numberOfLaps=63
startingGrid=4

Dont forget to increment the numEvents=XX line at the top of the file... and make sure the XX's agree.

Thanks to:
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Http://www.cruisekids.com for sponsoring my tracks.  <shameless plug>Cruisekids makes great clothes for little 'cruisers' that includes a line of "Formula1" clothing. </shameless plug>

Papyrus
Phil Flack, Martijn Keizer and the GPLEA for the design tools.
Christian Wohlfahrt for 123do and hours of encouragement.
Martin Granberg for GPLRA Groove Tool and track installer, 
Alison Hine - AI Laps, Groove Lap, WR Replay, Default Setups, and Beta Testing
Eric Bourgouin and Paul Jackson - Texturing and beta testing
Peter Forster - Final AI laps and LP files
Don Dodge - AI Laps, textures and beta testing
John Bradley - Programs and Beta Testing
Steve Smith - Badgering, taunting, slave-driving and otherwise forcing the issue <VBG>...     (Beta Tester #1, write-up author.  Without Steve's constant input and encouragement, this    project would likely still be on the table or just another hack-job of a track.)
Johnny "Redmist" Beunaventura
Michael Hausknecht
Jim Moore
Mark Beckman
Tom Slipp 
             ...for hours of beta testing and lots of valuable input, and anyone else I forgot to mention.  My appologies...

Miscellaneous
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This program is freeware, use it whenever you want and distribute it as much as you want as long as there is no money charged. The program may not be distributed on a media (such as a CD-Rom or a diskette) for which money is charged OR on a media distributed with for example a magazine for which money is charged without the author's permission.

This "README.txt" file must be included in all re-distributions

This track may not, partially or in full, be posted at any other sites without express permission!  You may link to this page, but not directly to the files.  Thank you!


DISCLAIMER
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This software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either 
expressed or implied. Use it at your own risk.

THIS IS NOT A SIERRA/PAPYRUS PRODUCT

Lou Magyar
ljmagyar@yahoo.com