The last couple of weeks have been pretty exciting. We drag raced the Torino, added another car to the fleet, and even attempted a hill climb! Since moving to Idaho, I’ve been wanting to participate in one of the hill climbs held here locally. I had missed the first one, so I figured I’d better order a helmet and get signed up for last one. Only problem was that I had the MGB torn apart because I was replacing the water pump and timing chain. So, I worked late into the night getting everything put back together.

The next morning I headed out bright and early. The B was running great and the drive through the foothills was exhilarating! As the elevation started to increase though, the fog started to lower. It was so bad when I got to the top of the hill that you could barely see the corners right in front of you. Not a good thing when are planning to see how fast you can go around them. Anyway, I got registered and visited tech inspection. The car passed, but I needed a fire extinguisher mounted within arms length. Luckily, I had picked one up before heading out so I was able to attach it real quick.

There were lots of friendly people up there who were willing to share tips and advice. We all had plenty of time to talk too because of the fog. Finally after a couple of hours, the organizers decided to go ahead and start. Everyone was assigned to a group. My group was scheduled to run in the afternoon so I went ahead and volunteered to be a corner worker in the meantime. Basically, you just sit at one of the corners with a walkie talkie so you can be there to help if anyone wrecks or spills anything.

When I left my house that morning, the sun was shining and it was warm. I wore a long sleeve cotton shirt for safety, but didn’t even think about bringing a coat. Boy, was that a mistake! The weather turned quickly up there in the mountains and before I knew it, I was shivering under a pine tree on that first corner. I noticed some moisture dropping from the sky. I assumed it was due dropping from the tree, but the frequency of the drops increased. So, I called on the walkie talkie and said, “we had rain on turn one”. The reply was, “we have snow on turn three”. Oh no!

So, they gathered everyone back up and we returned to the main parking lot. By that time we had a full fledged blizzard going. A few of us decided to run down to the ski lodge and grab a bit to eat. The hot chocolate was a welcome treat that I didn’t think I’d be enjoying so early in the fall. The storm didn’t look like it was going to let up so everyone assumed that the event would be canceled. I decided to call it quits and headed back down. It was an unfortunate conclusion to my first hill climb event, but I did meet some great people and you can bet that I’ll be there next year!