Submitted by Bob D'Amore (22-Aug-2006)

Me and my McKee (sounds like a 1930s song) were NEHA's only entry, along with 106 other PHA entries at the 2.3 mile long Duryea course. It wends through a bucolic public park in Reading, PA., climbing up just over 800 ft through its 8 hairpins and 5 super fast turns. The road surface is as smooth as Astro turf and well maintained -- not a pebble out of place. The weather was perfect and the course was fast. I was not -- at least not where it counted. On one run they sent the wrecker up to get me, thinking I had broken down -- but I was just nursing a loaded up motor through the hairpins. I dropped the floats and got it to run a little better and finally found all the right gears, coming within 4 seconds of the H3 class record but was still 14 seconds off Dan Rutan's 2005 time.

The upper half of the course is very fast and scary but it leaves me smiling once safely across it. I am writing a book about hill climbing. In it I talk about the manic idiots at Duryea who do 140 mph up the last curving 1/8 mile to the finish and tell one and all that I would never do anything so stupid. Hell, the Kellison is jumping all over the hill at 110 mph, switching lanes like a rabbit being chased by a mountain lion. Butch's Blazer is also moving all over the place at 115. According to my tach the McKee was quite happy crossing the finish at the idiotic 140 -- in fact it felt like I was sitting on my living room couch. My biggest problem was seeing where I was going as the slipstream at that speed does funny things with your head and helmet.

For years I've been hoping we'd adopt the PA. method of FAM runs where one gets to make as many runs as one can get in line for within the allotted time. I generally make 3. This year at Duryea there were no FAM runs except for the hill novices. They felt an extra timed run was worth the sacrifice. Getting 7 runs with 106 cars over a 2.3 mile course was not bad at all. We actually got in 682 runs in 2 days, despite the usual wrecker trips to retrieve Mustangs down from the trees, etc.

It was also the first time I saw someone sent home before he raced. A guy drove up to the edge of the mandatory drivers' meeting (we had to turn in our registration cards before the meeting to prove we were there for it) in an unmuffled 4 cylinder and sat there revving the engine, rendering the race steward's final remarks mute. One thing led to another and like a baseball umpire, the chief steward threw his fist toward the highway and screamed, "You're out of here!" So we had 107 paid entries and only 106 racers who made at least one run.

Everyone was asking about Butch and Bill, who are quite popular with the Pennsylvanians.

I would recommend any one of the PA. events to anyone who can make them. The safety steward ran a personal taxi service up and down the hill for me helping me find the tools to fix a broken steering wheel so I would not miss a run (I did not) and was there at the finish to tow me back to the pits so I could leave early (like NASCAR no cars are allowed in the pits which are at the top of the hill, unless they are in dire need of repair).

Best to all,

Bob D'Amore