6 minute read
Uphill Battle The Mini Meet West Maryhill Hillclimb
The Maryhill Loops Road was an experimental road, built in Goldendale, WA by Good Roads promoter Samuel Hill. Assisted by engineer and landscape architect Samuel C. Lancaster the road climbs the Columbia Hills from the Columbia River. Built in 1911 is was first asphalt road in the state. The road is now owned by the Maryhill Museum of Art and is normally closed to public motor vehicle traffic but on June 27th, 2018 it was the venue for the motorsport day of Mini Meet West 2018. Traditionally an autocross satisfies the competitive needs of the MMW attendees but this year they got the chance to expand their horizons and climb to the clouds on the historic Maryhill Loops Road. Ably assisted by the Northwest Hillclimb Association the MMW committee put together this one of a kind event. The starting line on the hill is at the 600-foot level with the finish line at the 1500 ft. The course is an adrenalin pumping two miles long. The road itself ascends 850 feet in a series of curves with a gradient of ascent at 5%. It consists of twenty-five curves, eight of which are hairpins. Spectators are able to view the race from the Highway 97 Overlook and/or from designated viewpoints along the track. Due to time and space constraints entries were limited to sixty cars. Each entrant got to make four runs up the hill. There were no classes as such for for the event, cars were basically classified as new and old, no matter what the modifications. Runs were timed but it was the racers responsibilty to keep track of their own times. For those of you not familiar with hillclimbing, in the UK and Europe we call it speed hillclimbing. It takes place on a paved road where the start and finish line are at two different heights. In the UK there are many Championships dedicated to the sports and competitors can enter their road cars and work their way up too full-blown Single seater race cars if they want to. In Europe the championship courses tend to be longer due to easy accessibility to the Alps. These tracks can be many miles long under very challenging due to their twisty nature and severe drops off the side of the mountain. Probably the best-known hillclimb in North America is Pikes Peak
which until recently was not fully paved, but it still commandeers respect from the competitors to come from all over the world to race at what is sometimes called Unser Mountain. The famed Unser motorsport family have a long history at Pike’s Peak. Jerry Unser raced motor cycle sidecar there in 1915 and from 1926 two 1969 there was at least one Unser on the entry list every year. As a sport hillclimb is great for entry level drivers wishing to get into motorsport. Most class rules allow for minimum modifications to a road car to fit into the entry classes. The drivers then can progress through classes as they gain more experience or just want to go faster. Some racers have even moved on to circuit racing with the best-known being Andy Priaulx who was a three-time World Touring Car Champion with BMW but now races a Ford GT in international sports car racing. Priaulx took the 1995 British Hillclimb championship in a single seater he shared with his father Graham. That is the other great thing about hillclimbing, many of the championships allow two drivers to share a car therefore making the sport more affordable. Because of the nature of the tracks drivers learn to deal with bumps and off-camber curves and learn to read the road, something that works well when they transition to circuit racing. There is no taking a lap and getting up to speed, the driver has to be on it right away, right out of the gate. Back in the day our local hillclimb at Rumster in Caithness was a thirty second blast, not long I’ll admit but it was intense. When you blasted into that parking lot located next to the TV mast and you knew you made a good run it was a great feeling. Because of that feeling many hillclimbers feel no need to move on to wheel to wheel racing, instead they get their kick out of that blast up a narrow road hitting every apex and breaking point exactly to the millimeter!
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The Maryhill Story! It was great to see the variety of cars entered in the hillclimb, in the older mini category we had road going Mini Travellers, Mini vans, noted Mini racer Don Racine and Canadian Larry Sandham in his radical Fortech built tubeframe Vauxhall powered Mini Clubman. The new MINIs included a GP2, Doug Bennett and his radical track toy and fastest man up the hill We talked to longtime Mini racer Don Racine who has raced Minis for forty years. He told us, “This was in fact my first ever competitive hillclimb. I had heard for years about such an event but never had the opportunity to try it. The experience was all new and even though I watched a couple videos I did not know what to expect about the road or how I and my car would feel about it. The car I brought is an out and out race car with the biggest thing from a powertrain standpoint is the fact that we never use standing starts and thus are geared for a 60MPH first gear. This means little or no real grunt when starting from a stop.” He went on, “The hill was a little daunting on the first climb but I was very thankful to have more than one try at it. It was really different not to have someone to chase or be chased to judge how fast you need to be but the challenge of the hill was still there for sure. I am not sure it could replace circuit racing but was a great experience that I could see it could get addicting” Larry Sandham gave us his perspective in hilclimbs, “yes I’ve hillclimbed before, ninety-two other times to be precise! And yes I find hillclimbs a lot of fun. I’m pretty sure there isn’t another driver in British Columbia who has run that many. I don’t know why I like it so much but I do. I circuit race as well at tracks like Mission, Pacific Raceways, the Ridge Motorsports Park, Portland International Raceway, the old Spokane race track, Westwood and Western Speedway. Next year will be my 50th year in motorsports. Watch for Larry’s Mini in an upcoming issue.
