Hillclimb Blog

Monday, August 25, 2008
Dickeyville’s Green Monster
Toughened up hill proves daunting opponent for AMA pros
By CLETE CAMPBELL TH staff writer

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DICKEYVILLE, Wis. — In this matchup pitting man and machine versus the beast, there were no easy rides.

A toughened Dickeyville Hill played terminator Sunday, giving many riders at the American Motorcyclist Association pro hillclimb a pit bull’s greeting.

Armed with nitro and alcohol fuel and up to 300 horsepower, they attacked. Some fell. Some conquered.

But nobody made a quicker ascent than the fastest man in the hill’s history. Harold Waddell scaled the 500-foot summit in 13.069 seconds while winning the Extreme class championship before a paid crowd of 833.

Waddell also took the Unlimited class in 13.179 seconds. Wisconsin Rapids’ Mike Bronk took the Pro Sport division with a fast run of 20.571 seconds.

Jeff Thomas, a Greenwood, Ind., bike builder, powered his way through the hill’s rough with an unrelenting attack that brought him home in 13.867 seconds. The time was good for second place to Waddell in the Extreme division.

“It’s rough and there are a lot of rocks up there,” said Thomas, who was making

his first trip to Dickeyville since competing as an 8-year-old amateur in 1982.

“You’ve got to hope for a little luck and you’ve got to be aggressive and don’t hit the ground. ”

Event promoter Clay Wilwert carved a snake turn into the 70-degree hill, eliminating the option of making a straight-bee line attack.

“It’s possible to make, it just all depends on where the tough parts are, because it changes all the time,” Wilwert said of the chameleon hill.

Thomas said the key to beating Dickeyville is to have a visual map of the hill and execute it.

“You’ve got to have a mental picture of every spot you want to hit on the hill and then you’ve got to commit to hitting those spots,” he said. “That’s what separates the winners from the losers.”

Fear is not an option in this sport.

“It’s a big, big mental game,” Thomas said. “There are a lot of guys who can ride good, but there are few who can mentally put it together.”

“That’s what makes these guys pros,” Wilwert added.

Thomas took dead aim at the hill’s choppy rough and didn’t hold back. He said the rough road can actually be the quickest route up the ladder.

“It’s a commitment thing,” Thomas said. “Sometimes going through that rough stuff, the faster you’re going the better you go through. It all depends if you have the courage to go through it.”

Dickeyville Hill’s increased degree of difficulty will likely make Waddell’s 2002 hill record of 8.91 seconds untouchable. No one other than Waddell came closer to breaking the 13-second barrier Sunday.

Waddell, a two-time defending national champion, can’t even see himself challenging his Dickeyville hallmark.

“You’ve got to have patience on the hill,” said Waddell, a third-generation rider based in Omaha, Neb. “You ain’t going to go out there and turn it wide open and make it easy.

“I can see a 12 or 11-second (run), possibly a 10. But you’re going to have to be perfect for a 10. I don’t think there’s any threat of the hill record being challenged because of the turn. When I did it, it was a straight shot (to the top) and the hill was a lot smoother.”

Wilwert said there is such a thing as a hill on too much steroids. Poags Hole in New York state hosted an AMA show last weekend in which just riders reached the top on just five of 68 runs. Wilwert doesn’t want Dickeyville to become that hard of a conquering.

Riders reached the hill’s summitt on 41 of 70 (58 percent) attempts Sunday.

“We could make this more difficult, but I want them to be able to go over the top, because people like to see that,” Wilwert said.

* The King of the Hill competition returns to Dickeyville Hill Sunday, Sept. 14 for a semi-pro show. Action begins at noon.