So, you’re thinking that as a club/promoter you’d like to put on a hillclimb…but you’ve never done one before, and need a few hints.  Well, you’re in luck…because we’ve got a few hints to give!

Firstly, check to see if there’s a sanctioning body in your area that you might want to hook up with – if so, they can probably assist.  Whether you’re going to sanction your event with an existing body or not, the following information will help you put on a successful hillclimb.

Let’s start with a general discussion of the event, everything from rider signup to the riders’ meeting to conducting competition and then handing out awards.  Might seem a bit wordy, but better to be too complete than not complete enough:

Things to know about running a hillclimb

Here’s a sample rider signup form that you can modify to suit your needs (like, change the classes to whatever it is you’re going to be offering).  Have a stack of them at the registration table and just have each rider fill one sheet out, listing every class they want to ride on one page.

Sample rider signup form

This is an Excel worksheet that you can use as an example for registration and scoring – just copy that one tab for each class you are running, and enter the riders onto those tabs from the signup forms.  Each rider’s best time/footage is automatically calculated, and then you can use the Sort feature at the end of each round to put the riders in order, and then print each tab out for posting.

Sample hillclimb scoring spreadsheet

One last item – an event checklist.  Just a kind of grocery list to make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row before you get to race day and realize, for example, that no one ordered awards.

Sample event checklist

Any questions, concerns, or other feedback?  Post it in our forums, or send me an email.