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Wheelspin: Sprinting Up Mount Washington to Keep Vintage Racecars Limber

24.10.2006

BUT for a few details, it could have been a scene from a half-century ago: Clusters of racecars, their paint jobs uncluttered by sponsor logos and their bodies standing tall on skinny tires and wire-spoke wheels, waiting in line for a run up the Mount Washington Auto Road. Colorful banners snap in the stiff breeze as the vintage machines, many 70 years old, snarl to life to begin their latest ascent.

The beefy steel rollbars in some cars, along with drivers in full-face helmets and fire-resistant suits, gave away the 21st-century reality of this summer’s Climb to the Clouds, a hillclimb that its organizers bill as the oldest motor sports event in America.

The racecars are not static museum exhibits displaying “please don’t touch” placards, but battle-scarred warriors doing what they have done many times before — chugging up part of the treacherous, winding 7.6-mile road to the summit. The goal is not to be fastest; it is to put the cars to their intended use.

One of the drivers, 67-year-old Tom Ellsworth, who owns a Ford-powered 1935 Amilcar, framed the event’s spirit this way: “We’re not racing for times. At this stage, we’re racing history.”

Early automakers first gathered at the foot of Mount Washington, New England’s tallest peak, more than 100 years ago to demonstrate their new products.

The mountain’s role in automotive history is not the only thing on the drivers’ minds. The histories of the individual cars are important, too. Mr. Ellsworth, for example, drives the car that placed second in the 1938 climb. Another entrant, Ben Bragg, 59, drives the Old Gray Mare, the 1934 Reuter Special, built with parts from 17 cars, that won the climb in 1935, 1938 and 1940. Only pre-World War II sports and racecars, plus select postwar cars, are eligible for events like this sanctioned by the Vintage Sports Car Club of America.

The route that became the auto road was completed in 1861 with hand tools, oxen and blasting powder, according to its general manager, Howie Wemyss, and F. O. Stanley made the first automotive ascent in 1899 aboard his steamer. Racing began before the first Indianapolis 500 or the initial Pikes Peak hillclimb; in 1904, a Mercedes reached Mount Washington’s 6,288-foot summit in 24 minutes, 34 seconds. Legendary drivers like Cannonball Baker and Carroll Shelby have raced here, too.

The road has been improved through the years, though it still follows the original course, Mr. Wemyss said. There are 72 turns, and although only the first half is paved, racers say the surface is rough.

Tourists can drive the auto road for $20 (for vehicle and driver; passengers are extra); it is open from mid-May to mid-October, conditions permitting — no small matter when you consider the Web site of the observatory on the peak says that the mountain has “the world’s worst weather.” It is not an idle boast: the world’s highest wind speed, 231 miles an hour, was recorded on the peak on April 12, 1934. The wind exceeds 75 miles an hour 104 days a year and the summit is in the clouds 60 percent of the time.

With sheer drop-offs, no guardrails and a steep grade, the hillclimb is not for the fainthearted. The road, manageable at 15 m.p.h. in your minivan, is a different experience altogether when blasting uphill through fog at 80 m.p.h. in a 1934 Hudson Indianapolis 500 racecar or a 1957 Formula 2 Cooper.

“Pikes Peak looks like an interstate compared to the narrowness of this road,” Steve Chisholm, who is responsible for this event’s flag signals and traffic control, said. “I’m not sure you could spin here without going off.”

The hillclimb, organized by the vintage racing club, is run on a 4.25-mile course to reduce the amount of road that must be temporarily closed to tourists.

“Besides, by the time all the cars have a full run to the summit, weather at the top can change, canceling further runs,” Mr. Ellsworth, the Amilcar driver, said.

Saturday’s practice dawned fair, but rain threatened Sunday’s event. The air was dripping wet, even at the 1,560-foot elevation of the starting line, and fog obscured parts of the wet road.

The cars rumbled to life, each taking its turn at the start, drivers revving the engine and dumping the clutch when Mr. Chisholm dropped the flag. The cars roared away and disappeared into the trees, their progress marked by the changing timbre of crackling exhausts echoing off the mountain.

While many of the cars and drivers have been coming to Mount Washington for years, others are new. Among the first-timers this year was Charles Levy, driving a tiny green 1955 Lotus 9 with a Coventry Climax engine. In 1955, Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus and the car’s designer, set a course class record driving this car at Le Mans.

To familiarize himself with the course, Mr. Levy first drove it slowly in an S.U.V. “It looked like just one turn after another,” he said. “But in the Lotus, the road became a collection of straights interrupted by bends.” The rough pavement posed problems for Dorien Berteletti, who was driving the Hudson Indianapolis 500 roadster, a car whose suspension uses primitive friction shocks. “On a bump it takes a big side step,” said Mr. Berteletti, who spent a few minutes between each run tightening the car’s loose exhaust system.

Even veterans find the course challenging. “I’ve run here seven times, and I have a vague understanding of the turns,” said Mr. Bragg, driver of the Reuter Special.

“There are too many turns and roughly paved spots to remember,” he said. “By the last run I’ll have increased my memory by 50 percent, and gotten faster.”

Many of the participants are vintage models, too, but the enthusiasm for the machines and the event sometimes passes to younger generations. Bob Valpey, 71, made his runs up the mountain in a 1956 Glasspar G2 that he and his son, Ed, 42, restored. Ed is driving his father’s 1950 Allard J2, which was raced to wins by Tom Cole at Bridgehampton in 1950 and by John Fitch in the ’51 Argentine Grand Prix. “I got involved with dad’s car hobby in ’82, when we found the Allard as a basket case under a chicken coop,” the son explained.

With V-8 engines, the Valpeys’ cars were two of the more powerful entries at the 2006 hillclimb, the Allard powered by a 331-cubic-inch Cadillac engine and the Glasspar by a 289-cubic-inch Studebaker power plant. Though both cars roared up the course impressively, their times for the runs were not announced.

Mr. Ellsworth, who served as steward for this event besides driving his Amilcar, made sure elapsed times were not posted. “We don’t promote times,” he said. “We avoid drivers getting pressured into racing the clock in old cars. The purpose is to encourage the acquisition and use of these cars, not racing.” Instead, consistency is rewarded. Trophies are awarded to the driver with the smallest difference in time between his first and second runs. “The slowest car on the hill could be the most consistent,” Mr. Ellsworth said.

Drivers agree that it’s easier to be consistent in a low-powered car, because there are fewer variables.

A top pick for consistency was Dick Waite, 68, with his 1953 MG-TD, whose condition he described as “well used.” He has won consistency awards three times. “I’m consistently slow,” he said. “It’s so low-powered I never brake — I just keep the accelerator to the floor and turn the wheel.”

At the end of the day, John Schieffelin, 69, driving a rare 1939 MG-TB took first place with a time differential of 0.36 second. Charles Levy’s Lotus was second with a 3.24-second difference, and Bob Valpey took third with his two runs separated by only 3.46 seconds.

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