With Pagoda Hillclimb on the horizon, we had to put some things to the side, just to get the car ready to race that weekend. The day came to depart and unbeknownst to myself, I had lost my key to our tow vehicle, which was the only key I had. After a long scramble trying to find it, talking to dealerships, and just being set in the inevitable fate of not being able to make it to the race, my good friend said he knew someone that could help. He would come to you, cut the key, and program it all in one shot. I cannot lie I was a bit skeptical, however at this point, what option did I have. I agreed to get in contact with him. So, he came by and presto new key and we’re back on track to make Pagoda Hillclimb. We scrambled to get over to the Uhaul, pick up the trailer, and then pick up the car. With that, we were on our way. We got there fairly quickly, but we arrived safe and sound around midnight. My buddy Matt Phillip’s was super kind enough to actually give me a ride and run up and down the mountain at 1am to get a feel for the road and survey it, which was awesome. I truly appreciated that, so thank you Matt. With that, the night was about done, so we packed it in and went to bed.
DAY 1:
Day 1 was was pretty straight forward. We got ready and headed down to the pit area to get tech done and over with. With tech out of the way, we had our drivers meeting at 7:30am. This would include talking points on the mountain and include what to do and what not to do. Once we got passed that, we got a tour up the mountain in the back of the truck to survey the road, which was incredible. At this point, I was itching to drive it, my excitement was just so high. Once we came back down to the bottom, we got in our cars and took a touring ride in our cars up the mountain, which I found to be SO HELPFUL. We proceeded back down the mountain to await for the competition runs to start. The first run of the day started at about 98 seconds, which wasn’t bad at all, but as the day continued we just chipped away until we ended the day with a 92.667 seconds. This would ironically be our best time of the weekend which had us in second place. We did get into first twice on Saturday, but just wasn’t able to edge out the time needed to take it back.
DAY 2:
By day 2 we were already deep in the road and seemed more familiar with it. The speeds were more manageable, the road wasn’t as slick as yesterday. However, things just didn’t go in our favor. Run after run, our times just continued to get slower and slower. We truly did try our best to get that 1st place back. I guess it just wasn’t in the cards or us this time around. I’d like to thank my girlfriend, Noelle for coming along with me and being my camera girl. She did an AMAZING job even in all that heat. I’d like to thank Matt, Mark, Amanda, Michelle, Jeff, Donna, Mike, Dennis and everyone else who offered me such great advice of how to attack the hill. I am super thankful to have them there, who has a lot more experience at the hills. We still have A LOT to learn, but we are enjoying the process. Thank you to our partners for being behind us and apart of the program. Until the next event, thank you for reading and have a good one.
