NEHA

Rob, I've read your posts on special stage and think you are jumping the gun a little.
First you can run in H4 or open, and I'm pretty sure you'd have a very good chance of getting in.
Second, you were not denied by RA. Have you contacted them yet? It is there own registration process. You aren't a regular competitor with them, so they likely don't know who you are. Write them an email, letting them know you want to be considered for the a rally class birth, advising them of your previous finish. If THEY deny you, then you know how you stand with that invite, and can pursue a regular hillclimb entry.

I got an email from people I dont want to say . I gave up on this already. They told me even if I get a ra licence I would not have a chance to run it.
I started to race with my wife, and I will newer push her out of the car no matter what.

The answer I got was that drivers for the rally class will be selected from nationally competitive RA drivers. If you really want to run Mt Washington in the rally class just enter the Rally America national championship and do well.

The Rally classes for the 2014 Subaru Mt. Washington Hillclimb will be limited to current national competitors only as selected by Rally America officials. Rally America officials will be inviting up to 20 of their top nationally-ranked teams to join us in June for what will surely be an amazing event! The 2014 Subaru Mt. Washington Hillclimb will also serve as Round #5 of eight in the 2014 Rally America National Championship for those competing for national points. As such, Entry Applications for these 20 invited positions will be E-mailed to nationally-ranked teams as identified by Rally America officials. Any questions should be E-mailed to: cttc-eventdirector@usa.net.

sdwarf36 wrote:Pick another class. You don't need no stinkin' navigator-you won't get lost.

It's not a matter of getting lost. For me (a real old fart) it's going to be tough to learn the whole course, much harder than a "normal" hillclimb where you have only 9 real turns like at Duryea. I still haven't decided if I want to enter Open or H1, or wait till next year (or should I say the next time which might be several years away) and see what shakes out in the Rally class.

Yes a co-driver could be handy at Mt Washington. It takes me a good long while to learn a hill and I will probably never learn Mt Washington very well. With many of the turns being completely blind and a few blind crests toward the top, knowing what is ahead is important...or at least reassuring.

I worked up a system in 2011 to help me in this regard and I plan to improve on it this time. Unfortunately my close enounter with some rocks early on the Friday practice in '11 left me with a car that couldnt really be driven in anger so my "system" didnt matter that much and I needed put my energy into trying to sort the car while in the pits and then attempt to keep it from killing me on the mountain. I plan to do better this time 'round.

1999 was not only my first Mt. Washington--it was my first HILL. My method on the my runs? I just let off for every turn. All of them. I could never rally-navigator or not-I can't charge blind into the unknown. I had made minor notes on my rookie run-using the check numbers. By the end of the weekend , I probably "knew" 20% of the course (knew as in " this is the long left with a parking lot on the left side" not "apex the turn at the barrel in 3rd gear") and knew the real scary bad parts were marked. I had a camcorder (remember them?) going on my runs. Before I went back the next year-I watched the tapes-ALOT.
2011-I was camped right near the road-I could see every car going up + down. I saw Higgins + the guy with the blue rear engine car go up + down the road all day Thurs-all the open time Fri-all the open time Sat. Constantly. My mistake-having a bike as my chase vehicle-and waiting for the weather to clear up before I went up the hill. (which it never did. )
And what did Higgins -whos used to have a navigator-do? He watched the Travis Pastrana video-made pace notes into his phone + played it back on his run! And reportedly OUTRAN his notes!

The point I'm getting at- you can get plenty of time to study the hill-from your GoPro--and as many recce runs as you like. You may not know the quickest way thru every turn- but you can remember the next turn is a right-and if you go left you turn into sky. 150 turns is ONLY 141 more than 9.

I know very well about forgetting what turn is coming up on that hill. I thought the road opened up because of the tree line, when it actually tightened up. Results where ending up in a ditch and having to work on the car for the next day and a half. Which in turn kept me from going up the mtn as much as i should have.

With that being said. I have always been very good at remembering roads and i can picture almost all of the road now. Its still a hill that would take a few years to really want to push hard in some of the sections tho.

In '11 I made a couple recce passes, but only one to the top before they closed the top. I spend a good bit of the time allocated to recce doing tech and didnt worry about it since I thought I had what I needed. I was wrong. Higgins had the right idea. Even if you can get a sense of what it looks and feels like at speed I think I will many as many legal speed drives up as I can, including after practice sessions. I also have my and other video to study and I will be doing that a LOT more leading up to that week than I did in '11. I will also make pace notes from my videos (writing everything down helps me with memorizing) and during recce.

I do have to give thanks to my crew and for all the help from other hillclimbers for helping me that day and making me realize just how important crew can be. I came down the hill and was ready to put the car on the trailer. They looked at me and said "are you still up for racing up this hill?" i answered yes, and they said "we will get this car fixed then!". It did change my outlook to just wanting to get up the hill on race day but, it was a very eye opening thing to have support when i needed it the most. Then, as i drove the car around the paddock to see if it was running i got a few thumbs up from folks. That made me feel like i was part of something special. THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE!