The Polish Mountain Hillclimb was held August 5-6, 2023, and was the fifth event in the eight event PHA Championship Series.
The paddock area and road were in great shape! And while it was hot, as should be expected for August, the rain held off until Sunday afternoon, when a strong storm blew in around 3 PM.
There were timing issues Sat afternoon, and it took until midnight Sat to get the problem sorted out with the vendor. No times were missed thanks to the backup system, and timing ran smoothly on Sunday. The timing team — Steve and Nancy Lewis, and Charlie Norton — deserves a huge thanks for their efforts!
A special shout out to Robert and Marie Sherman, who co-drove their 1972 MG Midget in H Production (HP). They came all the way from Arizona to run this event, and their times were quite respectable for the first time on the hill.
Now onto the event itself. There were 30 novices, which very well may be a record! It is great to see so many new drivers at this event.
Ron Moreck not only beat the Special 2 (S2) class record, he took FTD with a 51.268 in his Keonigsegg FTF.
There were 9 other class records broken at this event:
American Sedan (AS): Brian Halecki ran a 58.920 in his 1987 Chevrolet Camaro.
Improved Touring B (ITB): Max Valeria ran a 67.011 in his 1987 VW Golf.
INEX SPEC: Michael Hunter ran a 69.307 in his 2002 Inex Legend.
Forumula S (FS): Dave Cutchins took the record with a 54.980 in his 2011 Stohr F1000.
Club Ford (CF): Michael Company ran a 61.251 in his 1973 Ford Merlyn.
Special 3 (S3): Kurt Bartholomew ran a 56.203 in his 1986 BMW 325.
Street Mod RWD (SMR): Michele Aubele beat her own record with a 58.604 in her 2013 BMW135i. I don’t have a picture of Michele from this year, and will update the post when I find one, but here she is from last year.
Street Mod FWD (SMF): Hunter Huffman ran a 56.803 in his 1990 Honda Civic Si.
FX: James Cosner Jr ran a 65.836 in his 1978 Wheeler Super V. I don’t have a picture of James at Polish Mountain either, but here is one from a different event.
One of the interesting classes was Formula V (FV). Because this event has a return road, and the cars for each run group don’t have to wait at the top of the hill until the end of the run group to come down, it’s possible to have a 3-driver car if you get creative. And Dillon Axarlis, Dustin Axarlis and Jessica Fessler did just that, each managing 7 runs in their 1984 Wormer EV1. Dilon beat Dustin by just .186 seconds.
Bob Helton, Don McLaughlin and Patti Murphy took many great photos of this event. Thank you for allowing me to use your photos for this post! To see more photos:
Bob Helton: https://www.photozbybob.com/Polish-Mountain-Hill-Climb/2023-polish-mountain-hill-climb/
Don McLaughlin: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdallion/albums/72177720310330054
Also, check out this in car video from Bryan McCrae: