Spring Weatherly Hillclimb 2025 was held June 7-8 , 2025 in Weatherly, PA.  This SCCA sanctioned event was hosted by the Weatherly Hillclimb Association, and was the second event in the eight event 2025 PHA Championship Series.

The weekend forecast called for rain (is this why Ron Moreck didn’t run or was his car still broken ? 🙂 ), but it turned out to be a lot dryer than expected.   We did get heavy rain for a few hours late afternoon / early evening on Friday, so we started off Saturday morning with a damp course.

A heavy rainstorm moved in Saturday just after lunch while group 2 was running.  The drivers in line had the option of running in a downpour with water flowing down the course or skipping the run, and many of them bailed.  But the rain storm was brief, and the course was pretty much dry by the end of the day, and the times started dropping.

Going into the last run on Saturday, Justin Reed was in fist place overall, Mike Robinson in second and Leon Jordon in third.  After that run, Justin remained in first place, but Mark Aubele moved to second.  Leon caught Mike and moved to third, and Bill Feist ran a time good enough for fourth bumping Mike down to fifth place.

On Sunday, the rain held off until about 2:30.  I know Mike Robinson was happy to have that last dry run, as he was able to meet his goal of getting his time down to 52.  But then the rain moved in, and because only a handful of cars were still running, the event was called at 3:00.

Justin Reed was able to drop a little more time on Sunday, and remained in first place with a 49.327.  Justin came up from South Carolina, and had FTD at Spring Weatherly 2024 as well.    Justin runs a in his DFkitcar Goblin in Special 2 (S2).

Mark Auebele, who also runs his Wolf GB08 in Special 2 (S2) made a good try, but was not able to catch Justin.  Mark’s time of 50.148 was good enough for second place overall.

Bill Fiest was also gunning for Mark, but a DNF on his last run left him in third place overall with a 50.865.   Bill runs a Jedi Sport Racer in Special 3 (S3).

Rounding out the top five, Jon Post sneaked past Leon Jordan for fourth place overall with a 52.234.  Leon, who came in fifth and just .225 seconds behind Jon, ran a 52.459.  Both drivers were in cross karts, running in Special 1 (S1).

With the exception of the classes new for 2025, there were no classrecords set at this event.   But as Mike Robinson pointed out in his write-up on the event, Bryan Dion went fast enough to finally break Matt Phillip’s SMF record — Matt set the SMF record of 56.359 at the 2021 Fall Weatherly event in his 2000 Honda Civic.  Bryan’s car was moved to the new Sport Max (SM) class this year, but he ran a 56.267 in his VW GTI.  Congratulations Bryan!

We had a good number of novices at this event.  The Friday evening novice meeting and instruction format seems to be going very well, and is definitely saving us time Saturday morning (allowing for more timed runs).

One interesting thing about this event is that WFMZ TV did a live broadcast all day Saturday.  They had cameras positioned all throughout the course, as well as a big screen TV that showed the live broadcast from the start line.  When not showing the action, they broadcast interviews with various drivers, workers and event officials.

I did hear a funny story about one of the interviews.  Apparently, George Witman, Ron Lordy and George Bowland were pitted next to each other.  They asked Ron Lordy where George was, and he pointed out George Witman.  George said that it wasn’t until the interview was finished that he realized that they were actually looking for George Bowland! 

George Bowland currently holds the Weatherly Hill Record of 47.592.  He set it in 2012 at age 70 in his BBR Shark.   George was also inducted into the Weatherly Hillclimb Hall of Fame this year.  Congratulations George!

My car was running very well all weekend, and I had so much fun, especially in the downpour on Saturday.  Of course I have windshield wipers and a roof, which makes racing in the rain a little more pleasant.

I did have a problem Saturday afternoon, when the car was just not running right, and it seemed to have no power whenever I tried to accelerate quickly.  I happened to glance at the gas gauge after my problem run and noticed that it was sitting on empty!  At least that was an easily fixed problem.  🙂

As usual, a hillclimb wouldn’t be complete without a camp fire.  There were several different ones to choose from.

Thank you to everyone who gave me permission to use their photos in this post.  For more pictures from the event, check out the PHA Facebook Group or visit the following websites:

Tyler Powers:  https://motorsport.dewitphotography.com/Weatherly-Hillclimb-Summer-2025

Rob Leone:  https://www.pitphoto.com/galleries/motorsports/weatherly-hillclimb-6-8-2025?ct=2

Don McLaughlin:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdallion/albums/72177720326761598