Race day

Clicking the pics will enlarge your horizons.

Sunrise Saturday morning. Monarch Colorado, race day. The first engine that started up this morning was 5:30 AM and even though I'm a good hundred yards away from the pits, a thousand horsepower racing engine coughing into life is hard to ignore even for a sound sleeper like me.

I'm having a great time at the races and seeing many folks I met at the other Hill Climbs. But I haven't been able to tell anyone on my blog about it because I've had no Internet, and no phone service, so I'm a little behind with my blog.

The morning starts at about 6 o'clock, and I stay pretty busy all day taking pictures and videos of the racers doing their thing.

I'm doing more walking than I did the last time I was here since making a video requires changing locations more often than just taking pictures. And walking around here is not exactly fun. I don't think there's a level spot on this entire mountain, I'm either walking uphill or down, and there are places along the road coming up here that's steep enough I have to lean against a tree to keep from falling down the hill. Although, I guess I shouldn't refer to it as a road because it's a racetrack this weekend.

And speaking of the road that becomes a racetrack this weekend, it's not really what you would call a decent excuse for a road; it's about 2 miles long and was built to get to the operating mine where I'm currently boondocked. Some of it's pretty nice and could be called a road, but other parts are more like a narrow Jeep trail, with sharp switchbacks and drop-offs on it that make you wish you had packed a parachute.

But that's what these guys and gals that race these vehicles love; I don't know why, but they do. Racing is dangerous enough as it is without adding a road that wants to kill you.

The way the race works is all the racers start at the bottom, of course; that's why it's called a Hill CLIMB. But there's not enough room at the top of the mountain to hold all the racers, so they split them up.

10 or 15 vehicles will individually race to the top, and each one will be timed from the start line to the finish at the top of the mountain. Then the road will be closed to all traffic while the racers at the top return to the lower pits again. Then 10 or 15 other vehicles will do the same thing until all vehicles have been timed; this usually takes about three splits.

And if everything goes according to plan, such as, they show up at the starting line on time, they don't break down, don't crash, then they can do three or four splits a day.

Saturday's practice day, the racers get timed, but they don't count for anything. Sunday's race day and the fastest time in each category will take first, second, and third-place trophies. In addition, someone will have the fastest overall time and take the fastest man on the mountain trophy.

They don't stop racing until about 6 PM, and by then, I was dog-tired of walking up and down these hills. I'm sure sleep will come easy tonight, but I'm not sure I will feel like getting up in the morning and doing the same thing all over again. But that's what I'm here for, and it's only one more day. But at my age, time is fleeting and needs to be enjoyed every day, even if it means crawling out of bed at O-dark-30 in the morning

                                                                 Theboondork

This is the upper pit area. I took this picture standing next to the little Bronco camper. There's actually three pits in this picture. One where you can see the lowest red vehicle. Then up higher you can see another red vehicle. And at the top of the highest sand pile there's the largest pit area.
This used to be a gold mine, but since its very common to find quartz with gold, the gold played out but there's still plenty of quartz left, so now they're producing quartz sand and gravel.

Things get busy in the pit area as soon as it's light enough to see. But they have enough lights to work well into the night if they have to do repairs.... Which is pretty common.

Even though they've got big powerful engines, these cars get pushed more than you might think. And that's one of the things I like about this kind of racing. You can get right in the pits with the big guys, and sometimes hold a wrench, or put down the camera and push.

Mountain areas are so huge that its hard to take a picture that shows how big things really are. And here's an example, look at the sand pile next to the highest level of pits, and you can see two kids climbing up the sand pile.

They made it !

The owner operator of "Grampy's Kitchen" peacefully relaxes in his easy chair as half a dozen unmuffled thousand horsepower engines get tuned up only a few feet away.

It won't be long now and these racing vehicles will be headed down the mountain to the starting line where the man and his machine's mettle will be tested.