BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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IF YOU GO
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Weekend events at the 28th Gravelrama:
Today -- 6:30 p.m., parade through Cleves.
Friday -- Gates open 3 p.m. Side-by-side drag hill climb at 4 p.m.
Saturday -- Gates open 8 a.m. Flat drags at 9 a.m.
Sunday -- Gates open 8 a.m. Eliminator Hill race at noon.
Monday -- Gates open 8 a.m. Obstacle course at 10 a.m.
Gate prices -- Friday through Sunday, $10 for adults; $5 for children 6-12; free for 5 and younger. Monday, free. |
CLEVES -- It is an imposing mountain, more than three stories tall as it climbs almost straight for the sky -- a gravity-defying angle -- and its smooth gray slope doesn't even begin to suggest its trickery.
Try walking up it, as Ron Norton did earlier this week, and your feet sink in the pea gravel. Try it in a monstrous, four-wheel-drive vehicle, as will be done this weekend, and the wheels sink into the loose, smooth gravel -- while the steep grade can terrify.
Scores of competitors will attempt the Eliminator Hill this weekend during the 28th annual Gravelrama, a celebration that features four-wheel competitive events in what was once a gravel pit, and includes a parade through the village, camping, food vendors and thousands of spectators.
"It's the biggest four-wheel event in the United States," said Mr. Norton, chairman of Gravelrama, which is sponsored each year by IOK, an organization made up of four-wheel enthusiasts from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. "It's the best of the best."
The centerpiece of the event -- which runs today through Monday -- is the Eliminator Hill competition Sunday, but other spectacles surround it. The side-by-side drag hill climb will be staged Friday, the flat drags on Saturday and an obstacle course Monday.
About 300 competitors and their four-wheel-drive vehicles, from 35 states and Canada, are expected to participate, while 20,000 to 30,000 spectators will visit the 66-acre site that IOK owns here just off U.S. 50.
"It's not just us putting on a race," Mr. Norton said as he drove around the different race venues. "It's us being involved with the community."
The village participates in the parade, with businesses and residents along the route decorating their homes and shops. In past years, a Boy Scout troop helped out with the parking and an American Legion post came over to sell food.
Competitors and spectators for this year's event began arriving Sunday in campers, some pulling their four-wheel-drive vehicles on trailers, to spend the week on the IOK grounds. Sunday alone, 117 campers signed in. Others arrive throughout the week.
"Home away from home," said Earl Lechler of Williamston, Mich., who's been racing since 1984 and arrived in town with his truck, "Lead Sled."
Gary Spitler and his wife, Karen, arrived Sunday from Owosso, Mich., about 20 miles west of Flint, along with an inflatable swimming pool, makeshift bowling alley, bowling balls and pins, and his 4-wheel-drive Jeep Wrangler, with oversized back wheels, which he calls "Fuzz Nut."
"This is our 23rd year," said Mr. Spitler, who made the 342-mile drive that took about seven hours with a handful of others from his racing team. "It's the first year for the pool."
Bulldozers will wait until the last minute to come in and build up the Eliminator Hill and fine-tune the side-by-side hill drag course, said Mr. Norton.
The idea is to avoid the compacting effect a late rain can have on the pea gravel.
An adrenalin rush, stoked by fear, can propel drivers up the hill, and those who don't make it up and over must come back down the hill backward in their vehicles.
"Some people are just afraid of the hill," said Mr. Norton, as he stood atop the hill and gazed down at what seemed a straight drop. "They could be afraid of heights."
