The Lost Hill Climbs....

[Ron Mann]

While doing my homework...I've come across a few; shoulda, woulda, or coulda hill climbs.

the Philadelphia region SCCA was planning to run a "Fairmount Park Hill climb"
the Schuylkill Valley Corvette club was planning to run a "Locust Gap Hill climb"
The Duryea Sports Car Club was planning to run an "Oley Hill climb"
The Town & Country Sports Car Club was planning to run a "Stockertown Hill Climb"

I also found a sanction request from the Appalachian Sports Car Club for a Hill Climb, which was un-named, just South of Hummelstown. In talking with PHA Hall of Famer Larry Shaffer...he stated it was off the Middletown road, between Hummelstown & Middletown. Using overhead maps...I believe the road to be used was Stoverdale road.

The other ones listed above...might be hard to figure out where they were to be. I may even find more!

[NJ 03Mach1]

I just have a few questions if ya don't mind Ron, maybe you can answer them...

How come the ones you listed never "made it" into the series?

Will there ever be more hills added to the schedule that we have now?

What can we do to keep from losing the ones we already have? and the opposite, get more on the schedule (if wanted)..

How was it decided on what who where when etc etc etc for the exsisting hills...

[Rich Sweigart]

Fairmount Park never got off the drawing board due to the CIty of Philadelphia not wanting us racing on their roads. I remember my Mom helping out with the organization of the Philly Vintage Grand Prix, it was a huge failure do to political pressure, union pressure, and everyone wanted a take of the money.

Rich

[Matt Rowe]

I'll offer my thoughts on a couple of your questions.

Will there ever be more hills added to the schedule that we have now?

Never say never but right now we have a fairly busy schedule. Every other weekend from begining of the summer past the end. We have seen that if you run back to back weekends the entry count at both events suffer. And even last year adding one event possibly drew entries away from an adjacent one on the schedule. We all miss running once the fall hits, but at the same time its a nice break.

What can we do to keep from losing the ones we already have? and the opposite, get more on the schedule (if wanted)..

The few things that will end an event.

Losing event officials - Setting up the events takes a lot of work, finding people to pitch in is difficult, finding that one or two guys who is going to take charge and make sure everything gets done is really hard. These events take months of prep time for the event chair and eventually they get burned out. Having fresh people step up and take the reins is important.

Money - Most of the event orgranizers really do this becuase they love the sport, no one is in it to make money. But, losing money only lasts for so long. There a lot of factors that define if an event makes or loses but in the end having racers show up and enter is what does it. There have been times in the past where one rainy weekend that kept people at home would have seriously jeopardizes an event.

Lose local support - either by it no longer being worth their effort, pissing off key local people, key local person retires or moves on, etc. Several events rely on the local fire co, if they aren't making a little bit of money or their guy in charge moves on to something new and suddenly you've lost a lot of support. The moral here is be nice to our hosts and let them know how much you appreciate their support. Buying things in town or that the hill is nice, a word of thanks is great too.

[Mel Horn]

the Schuylkill Valley Corvette club was planning to run a "Locust Gap Hill climb"

It's been my understanding that Locust Gap was run once. '71 or '72, as I recall but no later than that.

Or perhaps, (the Wayback Machine is stalling) it was planned for '72 but Hurricane Agnes forced it to be cancelled and was never tried again. I know where the road was.

Agnes played merry hell with the '72 schedule...

I could take you to Gold Mine, Ravine, Jefferson and Tuscarora. The first three are within 30 mins of each other and Pine Grove, a recent memory.

[Ron Mann]

Matt pretty much summed up everything well!

If Locust Gap went down...it was either under another name or not sanctioned by the PHA.

71 Season:
Duryea
Fleetwood
Rose Valley
Topton
Giant's Despair
Weatherly
Tuscarora
Jefferson

72 Season:
Pine Grove
Duryea
Rose Valley
Tuscarora
Weatherly
Pagoda
Camp Shand

Yes...it is duely noted in the PHA records that Agnes had a huge impact on the 1972 hill climb season. I read that most of the impact came on the drivers, IE; there homes were damaged and that "many race cars were lost".

Mel...as part of my work...a goal of mine is to visit ALL the extinct hill climb locations. Having a guide would be great...let's plan on a road trip this Spring!

[dspgti]

Just a couple of years ago there was talk of reviving the Tuscarora. I remember hearing the road was pretty bad. Was that the reason we haven't heard any more?

Dave Y

[Mel Horn]

I have an occasional opportunity to go past the old Tuscarora road. It is mostly old Rt 30 east of Mc Connellsburg with a small spur at the end. That's the part that was trashed. Someone was putting together a car show or something and that's how the talk started. I guess they took a look at the road and abandoned that idea.

About the same time I found a road with three different possible sites on it in upper Franklin County and gave it the working title of Tuscarora. No one else to my knowledge has taken a look at it but Alvey Ford is familiar with that area and knew where I was talking about.

[Mel Horn]

Mel...as part of my work...a goal of mine is to visit ALL the extinct hill climb locations. Having a guide would be great...let's plan on a road trip this Spring!

I could do that.

[Mel Horn]

LOST HILLCLIMB(S) FOUND!

Well, one of them, but since it was known by two names I assumed it was two separate sites. Silly me.

On a trip out to Western PA I stopped by the Bedford County Historical Society. The folks there were not directly able to answer my questions but put me in touch with someone who could. Mr Frank Dunkle told me that "Breezewood" was actually held on old PA Rt 126 at "Town Hill".

Frank told me that he was a partner in a special called the Conner Dunkle which ws based on an old Ford coupe with a fibreglass body. His partner Lynnwood Conner drove the car as Frank had an other commitment. He says that there were approx 12 cars entered and it only ran one year.

Frank had also heard of the OLD Polish Mountain and had enjoyed going to the Cumberland Road Races.

I'm going to get more info from this person (maybe pictures?) and a date. I'm sure with a date we might be able to find out results, etc.

"WHAT HAPPENS IN BREEZEWOOD..." oh, never mind...

[Cumberland Racer]

Two lost hill climbs in Allegany County, Maryland, actually.

The Breakneck Road Hill Climb was run twice (55-56?) as a DC Region SCCA event. Later, as time allows, I can tell the interesting story about why this event was founded by the same man who started the Cumberland Nationals only two years before as a Steel Cities National Club Race event.

The "original" Polish Mountain Hill Climbs were held in the early 1960's on the site of our current Gilpin Road event by the Western Maryland Sports Car Club with no national sanction.

That D*mn Dave Williams

[Cumberland Racer]

More on Breakneck Road.

Dr. Benedict Skitarelic was the Allegany County coroner for many years. He was colorful, eccentric and wealthy man who once owned the Bugatti Royale that Domino's Pizza King Tom Monaghan purchased in the early 1990's for a then-record $8 million.

Long story, somewhat short, Dr. Skitarelic was among the original organizers of the Cumberland Nationals Airport Races and was among the folks who first visited MJR Wylie (SP? South African petroleum engineer who had big hand in Gulf Oil's racing efforts) when Doc Wylie was the Steel Cities SCCA Steward and helped obtain the SCCA sanction for the Cumberland Airport races. Doc Skitarelic's friends included Carrol Shelby, Ralph Pohanka and Duncaan Black (Black and Decker) and he played a role in helping to recruit strong fields to the early airport races.

However, being a bit crackers perhaps, Skitarelic had a falling out with the airport race organizing committee over whether they should reimburse him for the set of tires he wore off of this MGTD in early testing at the airport. Not being able to reach an agreement, Doc take his marbles and went home. Out of spite or ire, he set about to organize a DC Region hill climb on the West face of Martin Mountain near his family home at Cover HIll Farm (now the site of Rocky Gap State Park and Rocky Gap Resort). He personally recruited his buds to the hill climb and it was an amazing event. Carrol Shelby won the 1956 event, I believe in the same Ferrari 4.5 that he used to win Giant's Despair. We have great memorabilia from that moment, including a picture of Shelby in the Ferrari that he autographed for our 2004 June Historics Autocross at the Cumberland Airport and requested a copy of the photo as he had none in the Ferrari. We also have a hand written yellow pad of biographical notes written by Doc Skitarelic for the event announcer in which he described Shelby for the announcer as "from Dallas, TX...tall and curly haired, former chicken farmer, often races in overalls."

The event, as I understand it, only ran for two years. The road today is much as it was then, but unlike our ideal venue "one mountain over" Breakneck is in quite bad repair and dotted with households and farms that were not there in the 1950's.

Dave

[Mel Horn]

If Locust Gap went down...it was either under another name or not sanctioned by the PHA.

72 Season:
Pine Grove
Duryea
Rose Valley
Tuscarora
Weatherly
Pagoda
Camp Shand

I found my first PHA Rulebook- with tentative schedule-1972! It has been fed into the Wayback Machine to aid in our quest for knowledge.

Locust Gap was scheduled for June 10-11, 1972. This was before Agnes moved into PA (June 23-25). So it had a tentative PHA date but Other Factors must have contributed to its demise.

Giant's was scheduled for July 15-16. As we well know the Wyoming Valley hadn't even begun to dry out.

Rose Valley was scheduled TWICE but probably held later than even the (latter of the two dates in the rulebook)July 29-30 date. IIRC it was in August.

Topton (August 12-13) and Fleetwood (Sept 2-3) were scrubbed and Pagoda and Camp Shand took their places, but later in the year.

Further to Cumberland Racer's input:

Polish Mountain/Gilpin Rd is technically in Maryland, but it is within the three-mile territorial limit so we can claim it as Pennsylvania.

And can we get the MdDOT guy to chill out , for cryin' out loud?

[Ron Mann]

Locust Gap was to be hosted by the Schuylkill Valley Corvette Club, they were looking to host another event after Jefferson was done. I'm working on the scoop on this...the club is still active and I'm visiting John Bolton (long time member) again in a few weeks, it was a tad after his "active" time...but he's working the case from his end.

[Cumberland Racer]

We're contemplating secession, but it worked so poorly for our Southern brethren we've kept our Bergsteiger Korps field pieces under cover pending further diplomatic efforts to remain a part of Maryland

Looks like we're getting full cooperation and support for some operating changes that will speed up the flow at Polish Mountain by adding a second paddock entrance upstream of the pit out road so returning racers won't need to use the same access point as those going to the start line. MDOT has actually been very cordial in all of our Year Two planning. But, then again, our artillery is pre-aimed and at the ready....

[Mel Horn]

Locust Gap was to be hosted by the Schuylkill Valley Corvette Club, they were looking to host another event after Jefferson was done. I'm working on the scoop on this...the club is still active and I'm visiting John Bolton (long time member) again in a few weeks, it was a tad after his "active" time...but he's working the case from his end.

If it helps, Howard Fetterhoff of Gordon and Michael Boris of Mt Carmel were the 1972 SVCC Contest Board reps. For that matter Tom Hartman was PHA President and I remember him talking about what happened but I forget specifics.

[Mel Horn]

We're contemplating secession, but it worked so poorly for our Southern brethren we've kept our Bergsteiger Korps field pieces under cover pending further diplomatic efforts to remain a part of Maryland

You will be most welcome if it comes to that, but how will we explain the funny appendage to the Mason-Dixon Line? (Much like the odd bump in the US-Canada border west of Lake Superior)

[Rich Sweigart]

Howard Fetterhorf did live a mile from my house and continued to drive his Vette on sunny summer days, but I have not seen him for a number of years.

Rich

[Mel Horn]

I have an occasional opportunity to go past the old Tuscarora road. It is mostly old Rt 30 east of Mc Connellsburg with a small spur at the end. That's the part that was trashed. Someone was putting together a car show or something and that's how the talk started. I guess they took a look at the road and abandoned that idea.

(The above was in reply to Dave Yeager's question of "what happened to an alleged Tuscarora revival?")

I found my oldest existing hillclimb results page from Tuscarora 1973 (Sept 1-2) Among other neat things:
Bob and Norma Oswald finished 2nd and 3rd respectively in Modified I (I think this was the Kellison) and
John and Jane Stinsmen finished 1st and 2nd in Formula I (the legendary Lola F5000 car)
I believe Jane might have just turned old enough to drink.
(BTW, Ted Kennedy finished 2nd in Formula II driving a Lotus 22. As there were no bodies of water nearby to drive into I don't think it was THAT Ted Kennedy!)
BUT THE REASON I POSTED THIS was a note at the bottom of the results:
"Franklin County Sports Car Club wishes to thank all the drivers for their cooperation, especially during the emergency on Sunday.
PS: The Club voted Tuesday not to have the Hillclimb at McConnelsburg next year due to the problems with the residents and our co-sponsor.We will attempt to secure a 2-mile hillclimb next year. We will advise through PHA- John Huber, Hillclimb Chairman"

Would be great to know where that might have been...