Monarch Hill climb day one

Saturday morning, 6 AM, and 39°. How to dress at this altitude is fairly predictable. I wear a coat in the morning until about 9 o'clock, then I'm in a T-shirt until about four when the coat comes out again.

I found out very quickly that auto racing people all get up before 6 o'clock in the morning. Nobody had to tell me this fact as it became readily apparent when the first race car cranked up.

It was a full day of racing today starting about eight and ending about four which gave everyone four runs up the mountain. I don't fully understand how all this works but I do know there's different classes and you're only competing with people in your own class. There's things like motorcycles, quads, rally cars, open wheel, unlimited, and probably others but that's about all my brain can deal with.

The people here have been really great and have kept me informed about what's going on and why, realizing that hill climb auto racing is something I know little or nothing about. But it's fun to watch and it's interesting to see all the different kind of vehicles these guys and gals have built to compete in this type of racing.

If you're familiar with the Pike's Peak  hill climb they have every year in July, this race I'm at is the same thing just on a different mountain and in fact some of these people compete in the Pike's Peak hill climb and these lesser-known races are what they do when they're not racing on Pike's Peak.

But I'm having a great time here, as would anybody who loves the sound of a non-muffled highly tuned engine, and the smell of high-octane racing fuel.

                   theboondork

This is the young man that fixed my truck when it decided to quit on top of the mountain. I like to think his kindness was rewarded by him setting a new record in his class by the end of the race. I don't know if fixing my truck helped with that, but you never know how selfless kindness will be rewarded.

It takes a lot of courage to drive at a high rate of speed on these twisty, dirt, mountain roads. And to look like this, and have that kind of courage is very special.

Race official checks the times. Each vehicle has a timer on it that starts when they cross the start line, and stops when they cross the finish line. The race official then reads the time.

Never having been here before I thought I had parked out of the way, but as it turned out the truck became part of the pits and a gathering point for some of the drivers. Which is fine with me I got to meet a lot of nice folks that way. There's about a 100 foot drop off right behind where those drivers are sitting on the edge of the cliff.

From the start of the climb it's about 2 1/2 miles in distance, and a 3000 foot increase in elevation before you get to the finish line. The road is very twisty with some pretty nasty drop-offs but the faster cars will get up to 90 miles an hour on the short little straightaways.