1966 Giant's Despair...history lesson

[Ron Mann]

Hill Climb in Pennsylvania
GIANT’S DESPAIR
Since the first runs up the twisting ‘Giant’ the winning
Speeds have increased 240 percent!

By Jean Calvin
Sports Car Graphic
October, 1966


On Memorial Day, 1906, A “hill climb derby” was run up the side of a mountain through the borough of Laurel Run in northeastern Pennsylvania. This first race was won by a four-cylinder 45-horsepower Daimler, taking two minutes and eleven seconds to cover the 5700-foot course. Then and there the event was nicknamed “The Giant’s Despair,” and the annual climb still runs through Laurel Run 60 years later. A coal mine fire beneath the surface has been smoldering for over 50 years, and today threaten the very existence of the highway, as well as the future of the hill climb.

Giant’s Despair is steeped in nostalgia. Ralph De Palma, in 1910, driving a 190-horsepower, four cylinder Fiat, set a record time of one minute and 28 that stood for 41 years. In a later era names like Carroll Shelby, Roger Penske, Bob Holbert, stars from Europe, and guys from next door have come to grips with the current measured-mile course that twists and rises 690 feet from start to finish. For the past two years Harold Keck, Cobra mounted, has held the record, his 1965 time of 51.915 seconds being a far cry from that of the winning Daimler in 1906.

The 1966 event, conducted by the Northeastern Pennsylvania Region of the Sports Car Club of America, using the Pennsylvania Hill Climb Association rules and classifications, had the allowable 100-car entry filled long before registration closed. The Pennsylvania Hill Climb Association rules closely follow the SCCA General Competiton Rules and Production Car Code, and a competition license is required for their hill-climbs, plus a race-worthy car. Consequently, many of the competitors run the SCCA Regional and National races as well as the nine-event hill climb championship series. Pennsylvania seems to have more hill climb activity than any other area of the country. An obscure law on the book calls for the closing of public roads for “recreational purposes”, and the organizers seem to have a little difficulty securing use of paved roads in the various townships on the circuit.

The present Giant’s Despair site does not have a return road, so the course must open once an hour to allow the race cars and normal traffic to come down the hill. The first quarter of a mile of the run is lined with homes, and these enterprising landowners had the whole family out on the front lawns selling the best tasting and most reasonably priced refreshments this reporter has ever encountered at a race. Heavy rains earlier in the week has washed the macadam surface “detergent” clean. Long time campaigners claimed the road was the fastest ever, and this factor, plus the constantly increasing use of
sophisticated racing tires, saw class records tumbling in the all day practice sessions on Friday.

The hill climb course, a few miles from Wilkes-Barre, starts with a steep straight grade swinging left, and then into a tight right-hander aptly called “the Devil’s Elbow”. A kinky series of esses then leads to a straight-forward Banzai push to the finish line, where most of the big cars went airborne through the timing light.

With the majority of the entry consisting of under-two-liter cars, the competitors spent their practice day looking for the odd ounce or two of torque. By mid-afternoon the small field of Modified cars had thundered up the hill, shattering the absolute record, unofficially. Oscar Koveleski, of nearby Scranton, whose AWRA Cooper-Chevy (327 ci) looked like a fugitive from the USRRC races, became the first and only man to record a time under 51 seconds; his best practice run of 50.806 lowered the absolute record by over a second.

Saturday morning saw late comers taking their practice runs, including Hal Keck, who brought a 427 Cobra, looking for his third consecutive win. We also saw a strange looking vehicle of Volkswagen origin on the line. Owner-driver Bill Rutan, Essex, CT explained it was solely for hill climbing. Open-wheeled on a 1952 VW chassis, it has a standard Volks nose piece, aluminum side panels, and a 1500 cc Porsche Carrera engine under a vinyl deck lid, and is driven through an ancient VW crash box. Weird though it looked, the “bathtub special” and Bill’s other mount, a Quantam Saab Formula C, were the only under-two-liter cars to break the one minute barrier; the VW time of 59.330 and the Formula C time of 59.485, gave Rutan a matched pair of first place trophies.

Two official runs were allotted each entrant, and the competition started with small sedans, working through the Production classes and Formulas – mainly Vees. Caution was the order of the day and only a very few drivers spun out at all; these incidents were in the aforementioned Devil’s Elbow.

The race chairman, John Nobel, took the Touring I class in a Saab sedan with a time of 95.038. In Touring II, Joe Christ, Ford Anglia, broke up the Saab domination of these classes with a winning time of 81.417, but Touring III was a Saab GT, driven by Dennis Snyder, who chopped 3.5 seconds off the records, running the hill in 73.799 seconds. Formula Vee winner in an Autodynamics, John Grubb’s time of 72.144 gave him a two-second margin over the field. In H Production the Sprites out-powered the Fiat Abarths, and the record was smashed by three drivers, as Ben Laquasto took home the trophy and the record at 73:126 with his yellow Bug-eye. In G Production Elly Fronina steamrolled over the opposition by several seconds. Her concours-looking Morgan turned 67.508 to break the record. In a marques class for TR3’s, Henry Hemmen took home the hardware, running a 71.358 in a red, but rumpled fender example of the make. Elsewhere, in F Production the Regional Executive of the Region, Joe Wilkie, MGA, ran 70.961, another record. Gaining his new record by a bunch, in the Porsche marque class, Dick Sweigart turned a 62.812 in his beautiful silver speedster. In the standard E Production Raymond Reiter, Morgan Plus-Four, took first with 64.226. D Production was also split with the MGB section going to Butch Weber, at a record time of 66.709, and in the other D class Keith Kendig, TR4, also setting a new record with 66.079. C Production was Ladies’ Day again, as Judy Beattie broke her own record to win with a 61.407 in her Lotus Super Seven. B Production went to Steve Elfenbein, whose 1960 Corvette turned in a record 56.385. The Sting Ray marque class was won by Gene Miller at 56.162. He was not quick enough for the top-time of the day but did place second overall. The H Modified trophy, and a record went to Ken Gee at 62.566, in a Saab powered Lotus Seven. John Repasch, Porsche RSK, won E modified from a Ferrari Testa Rossa, scoring with 63.217 seconds.

When the C Modifieds rumbled onto the line everyone wondered just how fast Koveleski would go. Surrounded by an army of small boys, Oscar climbed into his Cooper and ticked off a 50.336 for the absolute record, the Bud Faust Memorial Trophy for the fast time of the day, and a three-second margin over the rest of his class.

The snow fencing was rolled back up in short order, the card table snack stands went back into the houses, and the hill returned to its normal life as an Alternate State Highway until mid-summer next year, when 100 drivers will again despairingly try to tackle the “Giant.”