PA Hillclimb

#3 another Sweigart...this time son Paul, with over 23 class wins

Just another note on George Frey. He held the Class Record at Duryea in E Prod from 1969 til just last year when Mike Ancas broke it. I believe that was the longest active class record at Duryea and probably all of PHA events.

That is one of the shames about SCCA classes. Instead of keeping the integraty of the class they just shuffle the deck. Aaron and I held every class record in EP except Duryea with our Rabbit. The Rabbit was declassed to FP then GP and now I will run the same configuration and some of the same parts from that car in HP.

On one hand, It is good for us since it enhances our competitiveness by running in slower (smaller bore) groups but it sucks for the guys that we get bumped down to and track records get lost to bigger bore cars. Although we have gained a few new records, we lost all but one of the old EP records and that will fall soon to some 16V, 2.0 L.

George deserves some recognition for holding the record so long. How big was his engine Rich?

Dave Y

nice add Dave!

The picture of my brother, Paul is in George Frey's car. They co-drove that car for 4 seasons after my Dad rolled Paul's car at Weatherly in 67(the body was hung in the rafters at Kressge's shop in Bethlehem, PA). My parents then, bought the car that you saw earlier in this topic for $500 minus an engine. My Dad and my brother, Charlie spent the 68 season changing engines between my Dad's 356B coupe work car and the Speedster till they had enough cash for a race engine. Most of my Dad's engines were built very lose because my Mom used to over rev the engine shifting. Getting back to Paul and George, they had the best of everything at the time. The deal was Paul would buy the parts and run the hillclimb series with George doing the wrenching and running the car in National road races. We think that Paul was spending close to $10,000 per year back in the late 60s and early 70s just to win EP and beat Dad. I am sure that it was a legal engine with all of the tricks allowed. Paul got out of hillclimbing after my niece, Julie was born 2 months after me in 71. My brother, Joe ran a Sunbeam Alpine in Fp for one season in 1971.
Another one that had huge power was Jess Holshouser, one time Kressge let my Dad drive Jess' car down the street and back. My Dad came back and told Kressge that if, he had that engine, he would win everytime.
As far as Frey's record at Duryea, it was sad to see it get broken because it was almost a memorial for all of the EP Porsche class and a time in hillclimbing that we will never see again with 150-200 cars, multiple classes like EP1, EP2, and EP3, not to mention Saturday classses and Sunday classes.

Rich

great bonus stuff Rich!

back to the count down...#2 Vince Hock

should be no surprise here...#1 Lloyd Geib

car now in the hands of Bill Shields

Not to shabby, Lloyd is the best of the MGB EP3 drivers, Hock is the best of the TR3 EP2 drivers, with Paul and Dad the best of the Porsche EP1 drivers, Seiple gets the nod for modern drivers. Very interesting, btw did my Dad score any EP wins with the 100-4?

Rich

Looks like 1963 was the year for your Father and the AH. It ran in Dmod taking wins at Spring Hershey, Hyner & Big Pocono.

Yeah, he never really did good in the Healey.

I'd say that was pretty darn good in a Healey. They never won much except in the hands of a great driver.

Sure, now all the Healey fans will yell about the one LeMans victory and a couple other examples but they never had the success of Triumph, MG, Jag and Porsche.

Dave Y

Thanks Dave, I am sure that if, he was still alive that he would appreciate those comments. The car wasn't competive as a Production car, so my Dad added a LeMans kit to the car and ran as a D Mod. D Mod had so, few entries that sometimes he would get Bill Weaver to run his TR3 in D Mod so, they would have enough entries in the class. Otherwise, it was his first hillclimb car and only ice race car.

Rich