Mt. Washington trip report

["Glen Powell" <gpowell@acacianet.com>]

First of all - THANKS to all the qlisters that showed up! Made our early and unplanned departure (keep reading) and the resultatant shortage of SCCA workers less bad. THANKS GUYS!

Fri: Up at 0530 hours. Cold and overcast, summit well in the clouds. Got started like 2 hours late waiting for clearing. The wife stayed in the camper with Zak as the weather looked not-so-good. Was assigned to position 18 - just below the 1/2 way point and right on the cusp of treeline. A very nice position, big parking lot, exdcellent view of the track. Over the course of the day we got Carl Merrill's Pro-Rally truck (blown cooling system) and a crashed VW. Cool lookin down at the undercast and up at the overcast - sort of a multicast for you LAN types.......

Sat: Up again at 0530 hours. Again, cold and overcast, summit in the clouds. Started about 1.5 hours late again waiting for the weather. Met up with the qlist crowd and got most of them signed up for flagging. Same worker location for me and again ran all the way to the summit. Wife & Zak again stayed in the camper. No real action at our location though we did have a rollo down below that held things up for awhile. After the action was over and we got back down to the base and had lunch I decided to take the family up to the summit. Started up the course and found that we were being tailed by one of the Pro-Rally VWs. Had a *LOT* of fun pulling away from him in a serious way in the TQW on the "straights" and then slowing to let him catch up only to pull away yet again. Real Fun (Tm) toasting a Pro-Rally car in the fambly wagon!    :)    At about the 5000 foot mark I switched up from 2nd to 3rd and NO GO! Bad Noises (Tm) from the clutch and it would not release!!! Sh_T!!! 5 miles up and 5000 feet w/no clutch! Got turned around and made it back down slowly and safely. Called AAA for a ramp truck and had her hauled to Eurosport in Merrimack NH. We packed it in and all headed home in the Winnebarge-Oh. It started to rain heavily on the way home and the wipers quit in the camper - SEE?! It's not just Audis that do this!   :)

Unofficial results: I saw on the Sunday news that Frank Sprongle won in his S2 Quattro but only a 1/2 mountain run due to, again, yet more bad waether. WAYTAGO Frank! Got the trophy back in Audi's hands where it belongs! That makes 4 of the last 5 years wins for Audi and 6 of the last 7 years for the VW/Audi/Porsche family! The win before the VW/Audi/Porsche streak was Carrol Shelby at the hands of a Ferrari in 1956. The last 2WD victory was Bill Rutan in a VW/Porsche hillclimb special in 1961 and the start of the VW/Audi/Porsche family dominance. What history! This race started in 1903 and is, I believe, the oldest motorsport event still run in THE WORLD! (anyone know otherwise?)

Our TQW clutch failure: Turns out that the yoke on the throwout bearing failed. Totally unrelated to the hard-charging up the mountain. Jes bad timing, *VERY BAD*, indeed. One of the 'ears' on the yoke busted clear off and the fork, clutch plate and pressure plate all trashed in the process. Oh well, 140,000 miles I guess we cannot complain (too much). Clutch still had some meat on it. All new stuff in there now including the F'n $170 fork. About $750 in parts and $350 in labor. All's well now. Hope to see you all return next year and perhaps some additional qlisters will turn out.

Oh, very nice treat to meet the Listmeister! Dan gets extra points for makin the trip on the bike!
(   you are sick Dan, SICK SICK SICK!!!   :)

Till next year, and, perhaps, in the KUQFH,

-glen