The growing interest in AMA Hillclimb racing is evident in 2018, with the AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship drawing about 325 entries across 25 competition classes and a new AMA featured series—the Northeastern Hillclimb Challenge—completing its first season.

A key factor in this discipline’s growth is its strong sense of community and fraternity.

For some competitors, the interest in hillclimb was handed down from parents or grandparents. For others, it was an invitation from a friend or family member that drew them in.

A great example of how the sport has grown along both of those lines is the story of Robert LaMorte Jr., his son Robert III and their friend Nick Harvey.

The LaMortes, of Scranton, Pa., got into hillclimb competition in the early 1990s. The elder LaMorte first competed in hillclimb racing in 1991 and the younger LaMorte followed his father’s lead a year later. In 2001, they invited Harvey, also of Scranton, to join them.

“It’s a great environment,” Robert LaMorte III said. “Everybody helps everybody else.”

Tim Johnson, of Valatie, N.Y., found that helpfulness invaluable when he and his brother started racing.

Johnson started racing hillclimb in 2012 and attended his first AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship in 2013. His brother bought a wrecked street bike, and the pair used their access to machining equipment to build their first hillclimb racer.

During their first national event, Johnson burned out the bike’s clutch in the pit. A competitor drove back to his house that night and brought Johnson a new clutch the next morning so he could get back to racing.

“Everyone here wants to beat you at your best,” Johnson said.

Competing in the Women’s Class was Keara Finkbeiner, of Grand Haven, Mich. She was attending the event with her sponsor Brix McFee who has been hillclimb racing since 1977.

McFee is now passing along his knowledge from more than 40 years of hillclimb competition to Finkbeiner.

It was Finkbeiner’s second time competing at an AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship event.

“My mom resisted letting me start racing, but she eventually relented,” Finkbeiner said. “Everyone in the paddock is super nice and helpful.”

Family Feeling

An example of the discipline’s family-oriented nature is Adam Parrish and his son Owen of Cambridge, Ohio. The elder Parrish has been hillclimb racing for 17 years and was competing in his fourth AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship this year in Monson, Mass.

“A friend got me into it,” he said. “I did my first race, and I was hooked.”

The younger Parrish was competing in the 50cc Class at the event.

“It’s a real family environment here,” Adam Parrish said.

In Monson, the pits were filled with families who knew each other and were willing to help each other out. These families see each other at various stops on the annual series.

For racer and AMA Charter Life Member Mike Templeton, of Manchester, Conn., family has been a major part of his hillclimb racing career.

A girlfriend brought him to his first hillclimb event 40 years ago, and Templeton used the money he had made picking tobacco to buy a Kawasaki KX125.

Templeton is part of a brother-sister-brother trio with brother Bob and sister Cathy, who have all won AMA national championships in hillclimb racing.

In his first hillclimb, he found himself situated between future friends Ralph Freeman and Jim Hunter in the starting queue.

Forty years later, at the 2018 AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship, the three found themselves grouped together again in the starting order in the Super Senior Class.

Templeton continues to race and is passing on the family tradition to his younger relative, Samantha Welch.

Welch competed in the 200cc, 450cc, Verticross, and Women’s Classes at the event. With 16 entries, the Women’s Class was tied for the sixth-largest competition class at the event.

Welch said her dad was the one who encouraged her to give hillclimb racing a try. It’s a tradition in her family. She has been hillclimb racing for 11 years and was competing in her third AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship.

“My dad began hillclimb racing in his 20s,” she said. “My brother was a pro hillclimb racer for a couple of years.”