The changes over the years at the PPIHC
Whenever you broach the subject of “Hill Climb Changes” you tend to get a collective chorus in reply, “Just putting the road back to gravel,” says Paul Gerrard. And for good reason, “Just the images of the Unser family sliding around those corners when it was dirt had me very interested in this place,” says Nascar Hall of Famer, Ray Evernham.
Nostalgia drives the desire to return to a dirt course but some drivers would also like to see the current paved course maintained, “Shaving the bumps down, re-paving sections, that sorta thing maybe,” says Gerrard.
The overriding opinion from drivers, we spoke with was the need for a better qualifying system,
“The one thing I’d like to see changed is that everybody qualifies on the same day. So go back to the way it used to be where we all qualify on Friday so everybody has the same weather. Because Wednesday when we qualify we could get rain and then Thursday it could be dry and that really sets the order,” says Paul Dallenbach.
That seems like an easy enough change but you have to remember that part of the appeal of the Hill Climb is the unpredictability, “You could make a huge list, but it’s the uniqueness of the event that there’s so many challenges and they change day to day to day. And on race day they’ll be completely different,” says Rhys Millen.
Come Sunday, the mountain becomes your main obstacle, “It’s as it should be, it has a lot of character to it and that mountain is never going to be easy no matter what you do,” says Gerrard.
