Before the Teton Hillclimb, course marshal John Atchison warned us rookies, "Don't be crazy in the morning. We hate to clean cars out of the trees. We hate to see things happen. This is real racing. We'd like to see everybody drive their cars home and no one go to the hospital."
In early September, aspens yellowing and maple shrubs reddening by the hour, forty-two of us, ages eighteen to seventy, entering everything from a rodded-out Model T to a Ferrari 360, gathered in Wyoming on the Tetons' thrusted western slope to attack the fastest, riskiest course the Northwest Hillclimb Association sanctions.
The approximately 2.0-mile paved blast leading to the Grand Targhee ski resort started at 7500 feet, featured eight turns, and gained 500 feet. Turn 1, a left-hander requiring gentle braking, fed into turn 2, a hairpin. (Here, a cow moose ambled in front of Sean Haling's Porsche 944 as we sized up the course together.) There followed sweepers and kinks, and with the discipline I eventually acquired, it was possible to blow through them without lifting. The forest of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir became a deep green emulsion, with the clustered pomes of the mountain ash supplying occasional scarlet streaks. Turn 6, a severe left with a mere G-string of a guardrail and a 600-foot plunge beyond, was approached at 100 mph or better.... Read full article