While the big news from Climb to the Clouds has been Travis Pastrana’s record breaking run and David Higgins’ crash, a total of 78 cars made their way up the mountain, out of which 67 finished. One of those cars was Frog Racing’s Emmanuel Cecchet and Mike Willard, who competed in class R1 for all-wheel-drive rally cars. They posted a video that does a great job demonstrating exactly what the experience of racing up Mount Washington looks like.
The multiple angles and telemetry provide a great idea of what actually goes on during a hillclimb run. Keep in mind that the speedometer is in kilometers per hour, not miles. But the altimeter is in feet, and accurate. The video demonstrates how much more technical Mount Washington is than Pike’s Peak. Not only does the New Hampshire mountain still have a mile of gravel road, it’s also much narrower, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other in places under normal conditions. There are also many more curves and kinks than the more open road up Pike’s Peak.
Cecchet and Willard leaped up the mountain in 7:28.94, which was good for third place in class. They were beaten by former Mount Washington record holder Tim O’Neil (beating his own former record time) and Chris Cyr in second place, and by Canadian Rally Championship winners Sylvain and Simon Vincent for the win. Frog Racing is in excellent company.
Frog Racing is a small team out of western Massachusetts. Cecchet and his wife, Margaret Sharron, run the FrogSTIr and PrincesSTI, a pair of Subaru WRX STIs, in everything from stage rallies to local SCCA RallySprint and rallycross events throughout the northeast.