If you aren’t regularly in the motorsports world that climbs hills in sports cars, you may not know about the “Climb to the Clouds,” as the Mt. Washington Hillclimb is known. Similar to the famous climb in Colorado, the Climb to the Clouds sees how fast drivers can go from bottom to top – in this particular case, that’s a timed sprint up the 7.6-mile Mt. Washington Auto Road in New Hampshire, ultimately reaching a summit of 6,288 feet. 

The Sports Car Club of New Hampshire (SCCNH)-sanctioned event, which took place Aug. 7-9 this year, is also not exactly new. The Mt. Washington Hillclimb was created in 1904, seven years prior to the first Indianapolis 500 and 12 years before the first race up Pike’s Peak. The Climb to the Clouds was run sporadically from 1904-’61, then not again until 1990 when it was run consistently until 2001.

Following another hiatus of 10 years, the Mt. Washington Hillclimb returned in 2011 in support of the 150th anniversary celebration of the Mt. Washington Auto Road, which first opened on Aug. 8, 1861. This climb has taken place in 2014, 2017, 2021, and again this year.

Fast is as Fast Does

Travis Pastrana set the all-time mark in 2021; broken this year by Scott Speed in the first time the race was run on a road that was fully paved.

But, as you might imagine, we’re not here to talk about fancy factory-backed Subarus or Circuses (Nitro, F1, or otherwise). Instead, this year there was plenty of success from those who regularly spend their weekends at SCCA® events, but happened to enter the Mt. Washington Hillclimb.

We won’t mention every SCCA member who participated at this year’s Climb to the Clouds, because there were a lot of them (so we would undoubtedly miss someone if we tried). Still, we would be remiss if we didn’t highlight a few.

SCCA Represents

Remember Pastrana and Speed being the two fastest drivers up Mt. Washington? Turns out, Central Carolinas Region member Justin Reed is now the third fastest in the event’s history. His run was impressive, with the clock telling us that Reed was second overall to Speed this year (and third overall in the event’s record book); he was also first in the Open class, setting a new two-wheel-drive record in the process. Did we mention that he climbed the New Hampshire hill with a Backroads of Appalachia sticker on the nose?

Check out his in-car footage from the record-setting run:

He wasn’t alone in his success. The entire Open class podium was filled with SCCA members. Central Carolinas Region’s Lawrence Shue and Chicago Region’s Tommy Plaza joined Reed, and if any of them had faltered, Mike Robinson was there in fourth.

New England Region’s Steven Blethen and Raymond Blethen both have Runoffs podiums (including Steven’s 2021 title) on their resumes, but with the Mt. Washington near home, it was worth a run. They made said run in their Touring 4 road racing Mazda RX-8s, sweeping the top two spots in the Prepared 3 class – complete with stock motors and skinnier than optimal tires as required in T4.

Full event results from the Climb to the Clouds are available here.

Your Turn

For an SCCA program that’s on the way up (climbing hills), these members put on an outstanding show at the non-SCCA Climb to the Clouds. It also goes to show that when participating in an SCCA HillClimb, you probably will be competing alongside some of the best in the biz – so go see how well you can do at an SCCA event near you.

SCCA HillClimbs

Photo courtesy Justin Reed’s YouTube channel