Black Mountain Hill climbs this weekend!

[Doo-bee]

Should be fun!

[Offshore24]

I agree. anybody heard from Dix lately? Wayne, where the F' are you?

[ewelin]

I saw him post over on dootalk the other day so I know he's still alive :-P

[Dix]

I'm alive guys.... just been real d*mn busy trying to get ready for the season, get sleds done, weld a trailer back together, get trail work done, etc....

I went to the Hillclimbs.... did better than expected... had a really good day.... with both sleds.

The 500 class was where I thought we might do well... as we've gotten the kid's 03 ZX to be a pretty strong running sled.... for a 500.

I finished 4th with it in the morning session with times of 18.05 & 19.14

Ended up 5th in the afternoon session which is the one that counted with 18.56 & 19.25

Once I got the kid some lessons on how to keep the nose down over the large bumps to keep the track in the snow, he improved on his 9th place in the morning session to right behind me in 6th for the afternoon session... which was REAL impressive as he weighs a 100 lbs. more than I do... that's haulin' a lot of freight up a hill for a 500.

And if you want to apply a "reality scale" to those results you could call it a 2nd & 3rd as the top 3 were late model 440 race sleds that were obviously not trail converted as they were posting 600 class times... no one in the 500 class was going to run with those guys.... but I don't write the rules.

The real shocker was my 'Gade... I nearly had a coronary when I put up a 6th place time for the 1st run of the day at 15.92 for the 800 class... I have my clutch setup "detuned" for off-trail deep snow running with a much lower engagement RPM than came with the Cudney setup... now I wish I'd put Bill's original primary spring back in it before I headed up so it would have come out of the hole harder.

Since the morning session was a "test & tune" throwaway I figured I'd experiment with a different line for the 2nd run.... didn't work.... the 16.55 dropped me to a 10th for the 800 class for the morning.

For the afternoon session I put up runs of 16.22 & 15.80 which landed me 7th... I'll take it considering I come off the line at only around 3400 RPM with the current setup.

Guess the 06 Backcountry Prototype can still get it done.

& this was all without doing anything special to either sled specifically for a "hillclimb"... we just hauled 'em up & ran 'em just the way we ride 'em everyday.

So I have to call it a real good day, as both sleds were "overachievers" of sorts... but any day you get to hang out with a great bunch of folks & have some fun ripping up a ski slope while you're at it is a good day.

Rich Knipping & Mike Perrino of TEAM MAINE missed the morning session as Rich had to work, but ended up 15th & 14th respectively on a pair of 154" Summits... Rich was having some issues with the primary he'd put on it as it was letting the engine spin to 8600... dropped the clickers a notch for the 2nd run... should have gone down 2.

The wife got pics... I'll get 'em off the camera when I can.

Results Pages....

http://www.chisholmskiclub.org/chisholm_results/2009-10/hill_climbs/2010-1.htm

http://www.chisholmskiclub.org/chisholm_results/2009-10/hill_climbs/2010-2.htm

[Offshore24]

Sounds like a great experience. You done good.