Update from Keith Curtis!  Double King Crown!

Update from Keith Curtis! Double King Crown!

Hi all!

It was a victorious weekend at the Afton Challenge Hillclimb last weekend.  The hill was rough and the sleds worked amazingly well.  Qualifying was Friday and Saturday and coming with that meant 2 courses set in between a 150 yard wide hill.  As for Sunday, as you can all imagine... the course was full of soft & compact snow, as well as deep ruts, 5 foot headwalls, stumps, & rocks.  It was an extremely technical hillclimb, reminded me a lot of technical backcountry dirt biking and the Jackson Hole Hillclimb. Qualifying & Finals - Over the two days of qualifying everything went in my favor and I qualified in 5 out of my 5 classes.  Modified 800 was the first classup for finals Sunday morning. 

I walked the course early in the morning before the drivers meeting and it was one of the most technical courses I have seen for finals.  Russ Tapio and myself were the only two to make it over.  My run didn't feel that smooth but the time I ran was 9 seconds faster than Tapio's on the minute long hill.  Stock 600 was my next class so I walked the hill again.  As I was walking down I had my route picked out but sometimes it doesn't go as planned.  The run was quite rough but still resulted in a 1st place finish!  Stock 700 was my roughest run out of them all, ended up hitting a 3 foot headwall that I had planned to go around.  I tried to pull the sled back around but ended up right in front of a gate.  After this unfortunate mistake, I made sure I was ready for the Stock 800 class.  I always feel at home when I hop on my 2011 RMK Assault.  Everything feels right and I was ready to rip!  I had a nice, clean, fast run up the rutted mountain resulting in another 1st place finish!  Next was my 1000 stock class which is the next stacked class behind 800 Stock. I had a minor mistake in the bottom coming around the first corner and ended up playing in the powder for a second or so but after that it was game on. Kept the sled wide open through the rough sections and finished with another 1st! King Runs - This is always a fun part of the day.  The best of the best riders of the weekend are in the pits and ready to hit the hill for the last time.  Since I had won 3 stock classes I had 3 chances to win Stock King of the Hill.  Two chances were on my 2011 RMK Assault 800 and the other was on my 2011 RMK 600.  I was first up and took my 800. I threw down a 40 second run and ended up winning stock King by a 9 second margin.  Next, was my Modified King run on my turbo'd 2011 RMK Assault... it was a miracle I won Modified King.  The run felt super rough but I knew I was making headway up the mountain.  As I was coming off the mountain I thought to myself, either way it was a great weekend!  When I reached the bottom Cole Willford gave me a thumbs up so I knew I had won, beating Kyle Tapio out by a mere 2 tenths of a second!

Afton Hillclimb final Results Stock 600- 1st Stock 800- 1st Stock 1000- 1st Modified 800- 1st Double Crown- Stock and Modified King of the Hill

Overall, it was a great weekend and sleds performed well. I am ready to kick some more butt at the Lost Trail Hillclimb March 12 & 13th and start getting prepared for Jackson! Thanks for everything all of you have done for me! Keith Curtis #711 [nggallery id=54]


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