The 2025 PHA Awards banquet was held Nov 22, 2025 at the Holiday Inn in Grantville, PA.

We had a great turnout for the banquet with 83 attendees, 27 of which were workers.  It was great to see so many workers at the banquet again this year! 

In talking to our attendees at random, everyone seemed happy with the buffet menu and the hotel in general. On the topic of the menu, a huge thanks to Sue Salsburg for helping me pick it in the first place, and also to Rich Rock, Trevor Filipowicz and Eli Sharp for help in confirming the choices.   I’m vegetarian, and while I could pick an all vegetarian menu that would be delicious, at least in my opinion, I would not do that to all of you.   😀 

I can say that everything I sampled was really good (which was all but the chicken and salmon entrees I think). I personally think that Holiday Inn outdid itself this year and that it deserves a shout out.  This hotel is really easy to work with, and they make the most important part of my job of organizing the business meeting and banquet pretty much effortless.  Plus, they not only do things like advertise in our banquet program every year, they have been great at handling last minute changes such as special meal requests to accommodate food allergies!

Here are some random pictures that I took of everyone enjoying themselves.

Thank you to everyone who advertised or contributed content to the Banquet Program!  This year may be the best banquet program yet.  I uploaded a compressed version of the program here (the full resolution version is too big for the website).

Click here to view the 2025 PHA Banquet Program

Rich Rock,  PHA President, was the Master of Ceremonies for the evening.  He not only announced award winners (with Trevor Filipowicz, PHA Vice President, presenting), he also announced winning door prize tickets throughout the evening, and kept the show running smoothly.  

Speaking of door prizes, thank you to everyone who generously contributed a door prize!  

Onto the awards…

First, Rich presented the Hardcore Hillclimber Awards, which were generously donated by Michael White once again this year.  I didn’t qualify this year as I missed Fall Weatherly for a personal emergency (see the end of this post for an explanation).  However, I have qualified in most of the years that this award was offered, and I personally attest to the fact that a beer (or other beverage of your choice) tastes much better when one of these glasses is used!

The Hardcore Hillclimber award is given to individuals who compete and/or work at all PHA Championship Series events.   This year we had 13 recipients, with 2 Double Hardcore Hillclimbers (competed AND worked at every event). 

Note: My apologies to Jim Swift for inadvertently leaving him off the list in the banquet program and on the awards slide show.  He is included in the list below.

Next, up were the 2025 PHA Class Championship Awards.  To qualify for a PHA Championship Series Award, a driver must have competed in more than half of the events in the series.  In 2025, there were 8 events in the series, and 5 events were required.

Here is a slide show of each class champion’s car, and a picture of them accepting their award if they were present at the banquet.

Next up were the Overall Awards.  We have three Overall Awards:  Overall, Lloyd Geib, and Molti Miglia (also known as Mileage; Molti Miglia translated from Italian it means roughly “Many Miles”).  

The Overall Award is based on overall finishing position.  100 points are awarded to the driver who finished first, 99 to the second, etc.  This award is intended to honor drivers who are consistently fast regardless of what class their car falls into.

The Lloyd Geib Award is based on position in class and on how many participated in that class.  10 points are awarded for yourself, plus 10 more for each driver that you beat in class.   This award is intended to showcase drivers who are winning against other similarly prepared cars. 

The Molti Miglia (Mileage) Award goes to the driver who has driven the most miles in competition.  This award is intended to honor drivers who will race under any condition.

Here is a slide show of each Overall Award winner’s car, and a picture of them accepting their award if they were present at the banquet.

Next up was this year’s inductee into the PHA Hall of Fame.  Crystal Hoegg presented this well deserved award to her mother, Ursula Whisler.  

You can read all about Ursula’s many accomplishments and contributions here.

The 2025 Worker of the Year award went to Cory Michael.  He not only worked all PHA Championship Series events this year, he accompanied Nancy Lewis to the Appalachian Hillclimb Series event at Flag Rock this year and helped her run timing.  

Rich presented the President’s Choice “2025 Outstanding Contribution” award to Trevor Filipowicz.  Trevor worked every event this year as one of the event organizers.  In addition, he is the PHA Vice President, and put in a great deal of effort in between events.  This award is long overdue!  

Last, but not least, Rich invited Jim Rathman up to the stage to talk about how long he’s been working the hills.

Then we shared these photos of Jim in action…

…and Rich presented a special award, not sure what to call it?  Most Hospitable?

Special thanks to Don McLaughlin for being our official Banquet photographer.  You can see all of his photos of the banquet here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdallion/albums/72177720330574638

A bunch of us retired to the hotel bar, where they put F1 racing on the overall at our request and we enjoyed (or at least tolerated) the live band and the enthusiastic square dancers.  More good conversations and fun times!

There should perhaps be one more award in the PHA Championship series — Last Ones Standing at the Banquet  🙂

The banquet was a lot of fun as usual.  If you weren’t able to attend, I hope you can make it next year.  In any case, I look forward to seeing all of you next season!

Oh, if you are still reading, as for why I missed Fall Weatherly, here is my explanation as promised. 

This guy gave me a scare, exhibiting symptoms of Congestive Heart Failure (and he has a heart condition).  The ER agreed, bumping him to the head of the queue.   Fortunately, he turned out to “just” have a really bad Upper Respiratory Infection, and eventually made a full recovery.  He was sick enough that he needed 24×7 care, and that meant no Fall Weatherly for me. 

Evidently, there are some things more important than hillclimbing.  I mean, just look at him…

Until next time…