Hillclimbs can be dangerous!

[Leland Pate]

I was emailed by a friend back in Idaho telling me they had an accident at the Bogus Basin Hillclimb. A fellow I used to know, named Stephan, rolled his mid-year Targa going in to turn 6.

For those of you who don't know, the BB hilclimb is the last hillclimb sponsored by the PCA. Stephans accident wasn't with the PCA, but rather the Bogus Basin Hillclimb Association. The PCA runs in May and the BBHCA later in the year, I think. Anyway, I've ran the hill twice and can say first hand, it can be a little "hairy". This ain't no autocross where you run a high risk of scuffing your paint with traffic cones. On the hill, you can run off the road and face a 150+ foot drop. Stephan looks to have barrel rolled on the uphill side.

I was shocked to see the amount of damage done to his car. He is a tall guy and always ran with the top off. Kitty said he had some scrapes and bruises, but was otherwise unhurt.

Man, I feel so bad for him!








Here is Kitty in her 993.

[Crachian]

some scrapes and bruises, but was otherwise unhurt.

Stephan should buy a lottery ticket.

[Leland Pate]

Here are a few more pictures of past hillclimbs.



Here's me in '02:


And Stephan's car in '02:




As you can see from the diargram, turn 6 is "The rocks". Turn 5 (Sky corner) is the one you really don't want to go off of.

[jpnovak]

Looks like fun. glad to know your friend was not injured.

that's a great exmple of why a cage needs a diagonal support. parallelogram collapse at its finest.

I also see he was not the first to go off in that corner. There are two sets of black marks from lockup. they are both straight and parallel, that's not from a spinnnig car.

[Eric Mckenna]

man what a mess he made of his 911.. ya know iId still LOVE to do one!! they are just fun as hell looking

[Leland Pate]

I believe he did have a roll cage. In the crushed picture, you can sort of see one of the tubes on the left hand side of the picture.

[jluetjen]

I believe he did have a roll cage. In the crushed picture, you can sort of see one of the tubes on the left hand side of the picture.

If that's the roll cage, it would have been better to have had none. By the way, he's lucky that he didn't go in the other direction!

[Grady Clay]

Leland,

Did you ever run the Ten Sleep Hill Climb? It was on the old US-16 highway in Ten Sleep Canyon between Worland, WY and Ten Sleep, east of Yellowstone and west of Buffalo.

For those that had never raced there; it was a remarkable hill climb from the ‘50s thru the ‘70s. Ten Sleep Canyon is a beautiful place. There is a big 3-lane US highway on one side of the canyon and the original road on the other side. They join at 10 miles so it is one-way traffic up. You coast and cool down on the main highway.

The hill climb was five miles, 2800’ altitude gain and I had 53 gear changes in my short geared 911. It was paved (mostly) and we used Goodyear slicks. Five miles in four minutes. Even today, I can vision every turn, bush, boulder, pavement imperfection, and shift point. Over the years I’ll bet I had over two hundred at-speed runs up the hill. I held top time for several years until my friend beat me by less than a second with a 400 cid SB 914-V8. I hold the second top time in a 2.5 911 to a 6.? V8.

I have a 30 minute 16 mm film of it. We sure have some fun stories.

Yes, some cars were crashed. Yes, some were injured (never seriously.) The only scratches I ever got were from putting my front fender in the bushes while cutting the apex.

Best,
Grady

[widebody911]

The 'tube' looks like part of the targa seal.

[CanuckRS]

Originally posted by Leland Pate
I believe he did have a roll cage. In the crushed picture, you can sort of see one of the tubes on the left hand side of the picture.

I'm glad your friend is OK....must have had a horseshoe up his butt....

If this car had a Roll Cage, it failed miserably....I run a Hillclimb here in Canada and the minimum safety requirements depending on class is a four point roll bar, 5 point harness, full Firesuit, SA helmet etc...One thing you don't want to skip on is safety...

[Fishcop]

Lucky it wasn't a RHD car...

[VaSteve]

I think my exact words when I got to the second photo were "Oh Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu......."

There's nothing left of that car. Wow. Lucky man.

Anyone know when the last time they did races up Mt Washington in NH? That would be real fun/scary if the road was closed.

[911pcars]

I would think roll bars/cages are not guaranteed to ever collapse. Wouldn't that depend on the type of hit, angle, vehicle speed, flight time and other unforeseen circumstances?

Be careful out there,
Sherwood

[CanuckRS]

Originally posted by 911pcars
I would think roll bars/cages are not guaranteed to ever collapse. Wouldn't that depend on the type of hit, angle, vehicle speed, flight time and other unforeseen circumstances?

Be careful out there,
Sherwood

While no Roll bar/cage is guaranteed to not fail, a properly designed and installed cage will greatly reduce the chance of injury....look at some of the most horrific race accidents on TV, very rarely do you see any with collapsed roofs even after several rolls....The requirements here for rollcages is that they have to be designed to withstand the following loads...1.5 G lateral, 5.5 G fore/aft and 7.5 G vertical....I'm sure SCCA requirements are similar..

All forms of Motorsport have a degree of danger that we sometimes are complacent about including DE's which alot of people on this board participate in...

We need to keep this is mind...Don't want to see anyone get hurt...

[aigel]

I am sorry, but I can not see a roll bar in the picture where he is driving, and there is no clear indication in the wrecked picture either. I can not see a 5 or 6 point harness in the driving picture either. A properly installed rollbar, with foam would be very obvious in both pictures. Also there is no sport seats visible, that would allow proper 5 or 6 point seat belt mounting.

This shows why you don't run a targa and why you want at least a roll bar. If you run without safety equipment, then don't consider it a race. Just go out for fun and go at a 3 out of 10 speed where you don't loose it. The guy is more than lucky to be alive!

George

[greglepore]

Pennsylvania has an excellent and historic hillclimb series, and no cars without real SCCA legal rolover protection or drivers without Nomex are permited. I think hillclimbs are really as dangerous as any other racing-there is never any "runoff" per se, and no real driver training program either.

[Leland Pate]

I remember his Targa had a simple rollbar in the back, behind the seats. I agree you can't make it out in the pics, but Kitty also said he had a rollbar.

"Stefan Kemper wrecked his SC at Bogus last fall with the Hillclimb Association. He barrel-rolled it into Corner 6, The Rocks. FORTUNATELY, he had a roll bar, so he lived to tell the tale. Carl Somerton impounded Stefan's helmet because it had so much road rash that it was toast, but his head was unscathed. Stefan ended up with minor bruises and scratches from crawling out the window. With as squashed as it was, we compared it with reliving the birth experience, but he said with gas dripping in the interior, he had no trouble getting out with all due haste."

[BigD9146gt]

Originally posted by greglepore
... and no real driver training program either.

Its a modified program.... When your on a track, there is runn-off so you can find the limit safely. Hillclimbs teach you"real world" limit safety... Perfect for those cocky "I'm a pro at everything" individuals that shouldn't reproduce. Several of you bring up the elemetry point of "not safe conditions", but thats what some of us like! If its not obvious that they know the risks involved, then the waver they signed at the beginning of the event was for what? Emergency bathroom toilet paper? Weither its a hillclimb or a simple rally, you can kill yourself if you try to push the limits. Its just that this perticular hillclimb would require 1000ft of cable to pull your dead ass out if you went off in the wrong spot.

[Chuck Moreland]

He may have had a "street" rollbar, the kind without a diagonal. They are just one step above ABS rollcages when it comes to protection.

[aigel]

Having no diagonal is the only explanation why I can't see anything in the driving picture. And maybe he got a bar later, who knows. It is true however, that a true roof would have held up better, so for anyone that's track car shopping - get a coupe and a top quality roll bar!

Take care, George