THE
TRACK THAT COULD HAVE BEEN
by Peter Milano
With
a few more weeks left until the final closing of the West
Hampton racing facility, it was time to take a ride a see
where West Hampton has been. West Hampton once held up to 4
tracks, one being the famous Long Island Dragway, West Hampton
1/2 mile Speedway, Motocross track, and a Dirt Dragway.
The
Dragway which is now used as 1/8th of a mile, used to be
quarter mile, the old metal posts are still up for the scoring
at the end of the strip. Over ten years ago, the owners were
going to flip the starting line and have the whole facility
rebuild at the end of the strip for maximum quality. The
building already began when concrete launch pads for burn-outs
were placed, but construction never followed suit. The whole
idea for flipping the drag track in the opposite direction was
to keep noise down and bring in top series. Long Island
Dragway in the 50's and 60's held stiff competition to the
famous New York National Speedway, with top drivers of Stone,
Woods, and Cook, T.V. Tommy Ivo, Don Garlits, and Ohio George.
We were going to see top stars of today come yearly to Long
Island, unfortunately it never came to pass.
The
1/2 mile egg-shaped oval saw a few years in racing. The oval
track had high banks and long straightaways, but turns one and
two ran short and made entering and exiting the turns
difficult for the drivers in the Modified class. If a driver
exited turn two with a lot of momentum, he would either end up
in the barricade or in the woods. The infield of the 1/2 mile
held a smaller track for the Bomber divisions to run on, which
kept cost down for the division. The Modifieds had other
tracks on Long Island such as Islip, Riverhead and Freeport.
The purse for the winning teams small comparison with the
"big three" and with majority of tracks on Long
Island small, it made it easier for drivers to race the more
accustomed smaller facilities.
The
track was intact till ten ago when the karting association
made the infield a permanent go-kart road course for weekly
racing. Turn one is gone and part of turn two is left
standing. In fact, turn two still has some of the old wooden
posts in the ground.
The
Motocross track still holds some of the old hills and half of
it was flattened for parking of the go-karts. The Dirt Dragway
is over grown with trees and bushes and can barely be seen by
the eye, unless, you knew about it many years ago. It's sad to
see the multi-purpose facility go away to another adult
community center. A huge part of history will disappear into a
land of buildings with only the memories of those who saw the
racing at West Hampton to remain.
