Track Plan Spurs Battle of Brandy Station : History: Developers want to build a Formula One course at Civil War site. Preservationists vow to fight it.

Preservationists say they will fight a plan to build a Formula One auto racetrack at the site of the largest cavalry clash of the Civil War, the Brandy Station battlefield in Culpeper County, Va.

Sources close to the negotiations said that developer Lee C. Sammis of Irvine, Calif., is considering selling part of his 1,445-acre property on the battlefield to a racetrack developer. Sammis had planned to build an office park as part of his Elkwood Downs project until he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June.

The sources said that Benton Ventures of Bethesda, Md., presented a plan to build the track at a closed executive session of the county planning commission. The company’s director did not return a reporter’s phone calls.

“There is a proposal that (a racetrack) will be built, but we hope it won’t happen,” said Princeton University professor James McPherson, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the Civil War and a board member of the preservationist Civil War Trust, which had a representative at the planning meeting.

The trust is negotiating to buy 800 acres of Sammis’ property next to the proposed racetrack.

“To have this (racetrack) on an area that has remained virtually unchanged for 130 years would be a tremendous blow to any attempt to understand this battle,” McPherson said.

Brandy Station, about 100 miles southwest of Washington, was the site of a cavalry battle on June 9, 1863, between 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers, which was the opening engagement of the crucial Gettysburg campaign. Historians describe it as one of the 10 most important battlefields of the Civil War.

In June, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed Brandy Station as one of the country’s endangered historic places. The same day, the state removed its historic designation for the battlefield after a vote of local property owners, who said the designation prevented them from selling or developing their land.

County Supervisor William Chase, who attended the planning commission meeting and whose district includes the Brandy Station battlefield, said officials were considering a “very large project” with “very significant economic impact.”

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote this month on a zoning amendment that would allow “racetracks, stadiums or similar public gathering facilities” in industrial zones such as Elkwood Downs.

The proposed three-mile racetrack would cost more than $10 million and could be completed by mid-1995, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

But other sources estimated that it could cost as much as $40 million to build a racetrack to exacting Formula One specifications. In addition, said Mark Raffauf of the International Motor Sports Assn., a Formula One track requires access roads, viewing stands, hotels and other facilities to accommodate up to 100,000 spectators. A track would need to host a half-dozen major events with large crowds every year to be economically viable, he added.

“A facility like that definitely would have a major impact on the battlefield site. It would probably tear it up real good,” Raffauf said. “Every one of those races in the world is conducted in a major metropolitan area where there’s substantial infrastructure to support it.”

Formula One cars are similar to those that compete in the Indianapolis 500. They race throughout the world on courses with left and right turns rather than ovals.

Some Brandy Station residents say that a track could coexist with the battlefield.

“It definitely would be a good thing for the citizens of our county, revenue-wise,” said Sue Hansohn, president of the Citizens Land Rights group, which has clashed with the preservationist Brandy Station Foundation over battlefield rights in the past.