Fw: Hillclimbs and other sports car stuff....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

> I am not surprised that the Mt. Washington Hill Climb was cancelled, nor
> will it surprise me if it is never held again.  I think that the time for
> this sort of activity is passed, and more and more, sports car clubs will
> become very highly professional (and expensive) elite organizations that
> hold very few, very high profile events that are watched by people on
> Speedvision, but not largely attended.
>
> The reason is simply that cars are far too expensive and concerns for
> personal injury so great that the cost of doing almost any kind of sports
> car event has escalated beyond common means.  Surely the kind of sports
car
> activity that was so common in the sixties is largely gone.  I well
remember
> that on any given weekend in the spring, summer and fall in the Boston
area,
> there were Autocrosses and gymkhanas galore during the fifties and
sixties.
> Today, they are relatively few and far between.  Large parking lots are
> mostly unavailable, because the merchants are open nearly all the time.
>
> A couple of years ago, I was a driving force in the founding of a new
> Porsche Club of America Region here in northern Maine.  It was extremely
> difficult, but aided along by the simple fact that the upper nine counties
> in this state were actually part of a Region centered in Halifax, Nova
> Scotia.
>
> A great deal of work went into the development and planning of this group,
> which was somewhat different in organization that that normally done for
> PCA, and aimed at keeping interest throughout this relatively huge
> territory.  Porsche Club of America was not particularly helpful, much
> preferring the big population areas  of the country.  Then, too, we had
the
> termerity to propose a new sort of high speed time trial as our signature
> event.
>
> The event was to take place over a weekend late in September using the
> runways and taxiways and other facilities at the former Loring Air Force
> Base.  The event was to involve ten runs on the course which was to be six
> miles long.  Three straight sections of between one quarter and one mile
> punctuated by rather fiendish chicanes laced with various types of
> diminishing radius and changing radius turns.  The neat part was that the
> event was originally scheduled for late September.  On the first weekend
> that the event would have run, the weather was beautiful and mild on
> Saturday, but Sunday was chilly, with drizzle and patchy fog.  I predicted
> that the winner overall would likely be a guy in a 914 who had had the car
> for a long time, and knew it well enough to drive the entire course at top
> speed...the big cars would spin on Sunday, their power on the straights
> negated by the chicanes and ambivalent weather.
>
> It was a cheap event.  The Loring Commerce Center helped by not requiring
> money up front and they were going to help set up the course, and provide
> pylons, concrete barricades and other stuff.  We were to have full use of
> the facilities, including shop areas, the old  crash and rescue (fire
> station) for tech inspection, ambulance service on standby....even the
> control tower if we wanted it.  They were lending us radios for
> communication on course.
>
> The commercial motel operation on base was going to provide lodging for
> fifty bucks per couple (for THREE nights), and we had arranged for a
caterer
> to provide breakfast and lunch trackside.  We even had the former NCO Club
> (a BIG bucks facility, by the way) to use for a big banquet and awards
> night.
>
> It would have been an eastern version of the Silver State Challenge sort
of
> event...and it failed by about six cars.  We actually needed about 39 cars
> to break even, and we actually got about 28.  Five more cars, and I would
> have personally paid the difference just to see it happen.
>
> Porsche Club, as it turns out, was the wrong venue to run this sort of
> event.  This is not the type of auto event that PCA wants.  Their
attention
> is on Club Racing and that hookus pookus quasi racing called by its
> sanitized name:  Drivers' Ed.  Nevertheless, because we qualified
according
> to all of PCA's insurance requirements, the UPnMAINE Challenge was a
> sanctioned PCA event.
>
> But the hot shoe racers from the southern part of Maine never
> registered....they were miffed because we formed a different group than
> theirs, even though they had never really shown interest in those of us
who
> were Porschevolk in the upper part of the state.  And, many many people
> wrote after the even was canccelled, saying that they "wuz gonna register,
> but......"
>
> In truth, the event would have been difficult to attend, as it was a long
> way away from a lot of stuff....twelve hours from the George Washinton
> Bridge, for example.  Yet it was a great opportunity to have a truly high
> speed event with a high level of safety and support from a lot of folks
who
> would have been glad to see this take place.
>
> When I read about something like the Mt Washington Hill Climb being
> cancelled, I think about the potential for a high speed autocross at a
great
> facility, with open vistas, and broad tarmac and concrete surfaces...and
> half an inch of snow to see just how good Audi Quattros REALLY are.....
>
> ...but then, I turn over and go back to sleep.
>
> Roger
>