Jon Smith of Woods Cross, Utah was the only rider to top the 1000’--72 percent monstrous Widowmaker Championship hillclimb and he did it twice. First in the 0-700 exhibition class and then again in the 701-Open exhibition class. Out of the 112 riders in the 0-700cc exhibition class no one could make it above the 750 foot marker; however Jon came down the escape trail and asked the hill staff to crawl up the hill to 895’ and find one place where he went around an OB flag. He did indeed go out of bounds and got footage rather than his time over the top of 51.6 seconds. Smith told the hill officials that he didn’t want a time over the hill if he didn’t earned it. Hill officials ran to the left side of the hill to get away from the massive dust that Smith was throwing behind his Suzuki GSXR-600 and couldn’t see that he had gone OB. In open exhibition, Smith again rocketed his Suzuki Hayabusa 1300 straight up the middle and over the top for an open exhibition record of 41.2 seconds. Kenny Kimball of Syracuse, Utah on his Honda CB-1225 came in second out of 70 riders with footage of 998’. Kimball, a former Widowmaker Champion had good speed as he came through the 900’ mark and pulled up the front end to clear the ledges at the top; however the steepness of the hill got the better of him and his bike flipped out from under him. The winner of the two exhibition classes determines the Widowmaker championship and Smith was crowned the 2006 Champion by 2005 Champion, Pete Krunich of Hayward, California.

    We really thought that about one fourth of the bikes would see the top said Hill Boss Scott (MOE) Lund. With the ninety degree weather the hill crew worked tirelessly to assist that many bikes off the hill. We are very proud of how the hill crew stuck in there for both days.

    The 8,000+ crowd and 285 athletes from as far away as Minnesota were happy with the facilities, the weather and the addition of both the adventure expo and ATV team competition. The adventure expo offered spectators helicopter, hot air balloon, 300’ zip line, and mechanical bull rides, kid’s toys, and rock climbing wall.

    The Widowmaker dirt hillclimb is the last weekend in June and the snowmobile hillclimb the last weekend in January.

    For additional information see www.widowmaker.info.