Practice Day

Since Dakota had a football game Saturday morning the plan was for dad and Nate to take the truck to Newport early in the morning to run practice and I would get there as soon as I could. We had a tool kit packed up, spare tire, 4 way lug wrench, various fluids, jackets, the works. We felt like we had a plan for everything and were in really good shape. That is until Dad and Nate got up Saturday morning and it was raining. That's not a big deal unless you happen to be in an open cab truck. They decided it wasn't raining too hard and they'd try it so off they went. I woke up about an hour after they left to HARD rain. I texted Nate to see if I needed to chase them down with dry clothes but he said it wasn't raining too hard at the time and they would be ok. Shortly after that the rain picked up but they persevered and got her down there with no incidents.

Dad and I had discussed earlier in the week not letting anyone else ride up on the first run just so we could see how she was going to run and to make sure she would make it. First text I got from Nate was "The queens are already in the truck". Apparently as dad got to the line the Hillclimb Queen and her court came up and asked if they could ride along. Dad, being a Boldman, and a sucker for a pretty face couldn't say no so up they went. The truck ran in the 95 second range on the first run. It was wet and we later found out that dad wasn't giving her full throttle, but she made it. That in and of itself was an accomplishment. For those that don't know the Newport hill is main street in town. It is a blacktop road of which we run for 1800 feet from a standing start with 140 ft worth of elevation change before we get to the top. The record run is in the 26 second range but that was with a Ford V8. The record was in no danger from us, but with a name like Half Fast I didn't think it would be.

I got down there about noon and dad already had her in the staging lanes for another practice run. I jumped in the driver seat and low and behold here comes the queen and her court again. Now, me being a Boldman and a sucker for a pretty face, they loaded up. There are 4 lines of staging and my line is moving up nicely and the anticipation is building. I get 1st in my line (next to go) and the starter gives me the cut sign, he's gonna run some from the other lanes. Damn it. So I sit there idling (the truck doesn't like wet and cold) with the anticipation building. I have some experience in high adrenaline sports and this wasn't quite on the level of skydiving, but pulling up to the start line I could feel my heart beat quicken and started breathing a little shallower, just like in a plane. We got her lined up on the start line, the starter asked if I was ready and then pointed to "the tree". Red...Yellow....yellow...GREEN. Let out on the clutch and we are off, red light flashing and Nate working the siren. The thing is geared so low we started in 2nd gear let her wind up, make a fairly decent shift to 3rd (considering the transmission is almost 80 yrs old) and keep my foot matted. I felt like I was getting a pretty good run on the flat part and then we hit the hill. Gravity is a bitch. Let gravity bring us down to about 8-10 mph, looked over my shoulder to warn the girls and jammed it into 2nd. It fell right in gear and we powered on up over the top for a time in the 82 second range. Not great, but happy with the run anyway.

I came back into town smiling harder than I had in a long time. What a great feeling to finally run "The Hill". Dropped off the queens court and parked the truck. Our friends Sam, Jo, and Ed showed up just in time to watch my run and Dawn came down shortly after so we all hung out to watch the parade.

We had decided to just leave the truck down there Saturday night. Well the original plan was for me and the boys to camp over night but with night time temps gonna drop into the 30's I decided against it. We parked the truck in the field they use for parking, locked her up and covered what we could with a tarp and all of us went to moms for some lasagna and much needed sleep. Tomorrow is the big day. Competition runs.