Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Hillclimbing champ Kerry Peterson and local 'climber Mel Kimball J r. were the big money wi n ners of the weekend. Peterson took the top spot in both money-paying Exhibition classes. Peterson grabbed his wins without being th e fir st rider over in either class, despite receiving a terri ble inj ury to his right arm a short six weeks before th e climb. Peterson ha s become a perennial favo rite with th e Widow mak er crowd wh ile winning th e past three event s - th e last of those wins retiring th e Wid owmaker perpetual troph y. Though h e and hi s now-legendary 1500cc, nitro-burning-Iuel -injecred Harl ey, and recentl y his Honda twostroke 500, are always serious threats in hillclimb competition, Peterson was rumored a no-show thi s year. An accident at a hillclimb sixweeks previous ended with one of the intimidating stee l paddles wrapped around his Honda 500's rear wheel imbedded in his arm. He was in a cast for two weeks, then underwent extensive , daily physical therapy to regain sufficient use .of the arm to ride. Though he was up to 60% strength in the arm by the time o f the event, he was further handicapped since h e had made major modifications to his proven Harley that cou ldn't be tested in his convalescence. Twenty-two-year-old Kimball, riding the Widow for the I I th year, was a real threat to win and looked awesome while topping the hill four times in five attempts. Two of those climbs were good for second place in both Exhibition classes. He picked up a n extra 1000 for winning the Pepsi Shoorout, a race a t the end of th e co m pe ti tio n day for the top 10 rid ers in eac h Exhibition class. - Wo rld Hillclimbing Champion Kerry Peterson topped the Widowmaker on his heavily-modified CRSOOR to win the 700cc Exhibition class. Widowmaker Hillclimb: McCoy first over; Peterson still champ By Chris Boice . SALT LAKE CITY. UT, MAY 19 Salt Lake City's Bees M.C. laid out th eir idea of a n unclimbable hill for the 22nd annual Widowmaker Hillclimb, and California rider Ru ssell McCo y w a s the firs t t o top" the in famous hill and em ba r. h . f 'f rass t e Bees In ront 0 20.000 pI us spectators. Crowd sympathies were vocally in favor of the 14 . . riders during the II-and-a-half hours the contestants attempted to take th e bite out of th e " Wido w." Unfortunatel y for th e Bees , McCoy was m erely the first er II riders wh o . to pped th e hill. though the 1500-foo t climb was inarguably the toughest Widowmaker course ever. The Bees put on a good effort this year to stop riders from seeing the top of th e hill. T he y. instituted . r~ le changes that kept riders from riding two classes on th e same bike o r sharin g bik es. Th e' rule th at was th e undoin g of the agin g-but- stilIpoisonous Widow was th e division of th e Exhibition classes so the little bikes cou ld rut against themselves. 700cc Exh ibition McCoy was on e of the early riders O U l in th e morning. His ride was th e sl ow est of the riders wh o actuall y to p ped th e hill. but h e faced a rel ati vely virg in hill with sage brush co vering th e first 900 feet. After th e brush wa s an ess turn th at was more like two 90-degree turns - a tight righthander onto an off-camber that led to a loose, rocky steep uphill left turn, Those turns were there to kill a rider 's run at a vertical rock Iace about IO-feet tall located at the IIOO-foot mark. McCoy was first to successfully deal with the face. Later in the day , wh en riders hit the ledge, the steel paddles on the rear wheels of their bikes wore grooves into it so it was less steep. That gave McCoy the S I000 prize for being the first rider to top the Widow. In the first of four good runs, Kimball put his Yamaha YZ490 over the top to become the second rider over for the day a nd the second rider from Utah to ever go over the top. He also went over on his second run in this class. and the fastest of those runs gave him second place. The first test of World H illcl im b Champion Peterso n 's arm was his . first run on his sanitary American Honda-sponsored CR500R. Standout features on the machine were a Ca lFab aluminum swingarm and an extremely healthy Klemm Research modi fied engine. The entire bike was so clean that it appeared to have come from the showroom as a hillclimber. T he bike wasn't the only sanitary thing about the ru n . Peterso n descr ibed the run - the fastes t run of the day at 35.32 seconds - as perhaps the most perfect run he had ever made. That run gave Kerry his first class win of the day. A total of eight riders went over the Widow in the 700cc Exhibition class. Third place went to Kimball's brother Kenny, who also rode a YZ490. Fourth wa s Dav e Turner. T he Kimballs are o ne of the big fami lies o f U ta h hillcl imbing , but th e ot he r big fami ly affai r in the state is the Whitlock family . They had two brothers in the top 10 as we ll. Rod Whitlock .went over on a YZ490 for fifth, and brother Travis was 10th at 1241 feet. In the Pepsi Challenge. Travis, at 14-years-old, became the youngest rider ever to tame the hill, on a Yamaha 1100. Mark Lenhardt went ov er for sixth, Mark Cox did likewise for seventh and McCoy, by virtue of th e slowest run over, was eighth. Greg Ditrnar was ninth at 1300 feet . Open Exhibition Peterson had to wait until his second run to win the Open class, since he bailed at the ledge on his first run on his Harley. He set fast Open Exhibition time on the second run to win the class. Many of the spectators commented that th e run on the Harley was o ne of the most amazing th in gs they had seen in moiorsports. T h e rider closest to Peterson was Me l Kim ball , who was mounted on the sa me type of fo ur-cy linder Honda in a single shock frame that has become qui te common in timed-speed climbs. Kimba ll topped the h ill on h is first turn to set the second-fastest tim e and claim second. Jim True, the first rider to top the new, higher Widowmaker in 1976 on a Harley, finally got the bugs worRed out of his YZ980 to take third with third-fastest time. He had not topped the hill since 1976. His bike is constructed from two YZ490 top ends on a handmade crankcase with a Honda 750 transmission attached. Tom Elmore came from Illinois to be the first rider to top th e hill on a Kaw asaki four-cylinder, a n 1100. and take fourth . The first Utah rider ever to tame th e Widow, Lance Lundgreen , was back this year with a Yamaha FJ 1100 Ior the Big-Bore class. Th e bike looked entirely too stock to handle well enough to get over the ledge or around the ess-tum, He had a different fork and front wheel and, naturally, an extended swingarm and paddle tire, but the rest of the bike loo ked painfully stock. He was the slowest of the riders over the top, but he loo ked awesome in the attempt. Spectators' choice in th e Open Exhibition class was Charles Ford a nd his Suzuki GT750 water-cooled twostroke. The bike had two rims in the rear with paddles welded a ll the way across; it also screamed like a banshee and threw a mammoth roost. Ford pleased the crowd immensely by hitting the ledge at the steepest point and then jumping the bike over it . He didn 't go over, but he was a hero with the crazies gathered at the ledge. Sportsmen Expert and Sportsmen class riders ran for trophies on a different hill about 30 feet from the Exhibition hill, Neither class got a run at" the hill: Sportsmen are not allowed to ru n fuel o r paddles or chains on the tires, even though they are allowed extended swingarms a nd cut rubber tires. R ich ard Murdock won the 250cc Expert class on an extended '82 Honda CR250 wi th a 395-foo t run, and Chris Boice was th ir d. His 364- foo t rim was o n ly two feet short of second place Pau l Svenvold's 366. Carl Collier p ro ved the h orsepo wer o f th e new Kawasaki KX500 by to p ping the 500cc Expert class wit h a 841-foot ru n . Travis Whitlock was second at 741 feet. Ca nadian woman rider Brenda Pierso n - a Widowmaker regular topped the new Women 's class wi th a 339-foot run on a 750cc Kawasaki triple. • (R ~~u lt$ in R ~su Lts Section ]

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