Wednesday, September 01, 1999
Tristate scene: Gravelrama in Cleves
It's almost impossible to climb, and it's dangerous when you make it
BY JOHN JOHNSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tracey Anthony of West Branch, Mich., makes it to the summit.
(Michael E. Keating photos)
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As hills go, it's a humdinger. It seems to reach to the sky, but this is no stairway to heaven. This is a 130-foot heap of pea gravel and sand that dashes the hopes of most drivers hell-bent on conquering it.
Sunday's Big Eliminator Hill event was a highlight of the 29th annual Gravelrama in Cleves, one of the country's biggest four-wheel-drive competitions. The four-day event, sponsored by I.O.K. Four Wheelers Inc., ended Monday.
Frank Olszewski drove 800 miles for a crack at — what else?
“That hill,” said the 46-year-old truck driver from Wallingford, Conn., parked at the bottom and awaiting his turn. “Just gotta climb it.”
He was behind the wheel of his wife's vehicle, dubbed Joint Custody Too. Tina Olszewski has been competing in four-wheel-drive events for 13 years, but she wants no part of “Big Elim.”
Flagman Jerry Hamilton of bright waits for a competitor at the top.
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“This hill is a mental game,” she said. “I give these drivers a ton of credit to sit here and stare at that before having to try to climb it. It takes a special person even to try this hill.
“I'm not that person.”
In any given year, maybe 15 percent of drivers get over the top, said Ken Fields, Gravelrama's announcer. “There's guys who have been coming for years, and have yet to go over the hill,” he said.
Spectators love to watch them try. Thousands flock to the 66-acre former gravel pit near the intersection of U.S. 50 and Ohio 128.
Gravelrama is good friends getting together to watch souped-up vehicles with names such as Mister Insanity, Against All Odds, Full Throttle and God of Thunder.
Mud was a constant, even in the parking lot.
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It's roaring engines and huge paddle tires that spin madly in the soft gravel.
It's tank tops and tattoos, funnel cakes and corn dogs, shirtless men and nasty sunburns, pitchers of beer and photo ops with the Midwest Bikini Team.
Towering over it all, figuratively and literally, is the hill.
“I keep it steep,” said Dave Ohmer of Miami Heights, one of the I.O.K. Four Wheeler members who helps ready the course.
“This is what it's going to be like trying to climb this hill,” he said before Sunday's competition. He took a few steps into the pea gravel, and his boots sank like he was in quicksand.
One key to success: “You've got to have luck,” said Tom Hardy, a 56-year-old self-employed mechanic from Hambleton, W.Va.
It also doesn't hurt to have a powerful engine that sounds like it belongs on a Saturn V rocket. Which was the case with Mr. Hardy's vehicle, Mud Rat IV. On Sunday he beat the hill, as he's done a number of times since 1982.
Four years ago, Tracey Anthony made it over the hill. But it was a harrowing ride for the 30-year-old welder from West Branch, Mich. She was going too fast over the crest, and her car rolled on the hill's backside.
“I screwed my neck up,” she said, “but other than that, I was fine.”
On Sunday, she tried again.
And again, she hit the peak traveling too fast. Her $30,000 vehicle — she welded it herself — went airborne and hit nose-first on the hill's backside. With a damaged front end, she needed a tow back to her campsite.
“I have a hard time with landings,” she said. But she still ended up with a second-place trophy in her class.
Mike Gabriele, a 30-year-old from Philadelphia, scaled Big Elim four years ago in his sand dragster. The hill is so steep, he said, “As soon as you pull in, you don't seen nothin' but sky. You just feel like you're on a wave goin' up.”
But on Sunday, the wave died unexpectedly at the very crest of the hill when Mr. Gabriele accidentally hit his engine's kill button. Disqualified, he had to retreat backward down the hill.
“They say coming down backwards is worse than going over it,” said 22-year-old Zak Steelman, watching events unfold with friends Jason Wolnitzek, 22, and Brad Hamilton, 23. The trio sat shirtless on a sunny hillside with several thousand other fans.
In past years, the thrill of the hill has eluded Zak as he's tried to conquer it with a Jeep that's not nearly as high-powered as some Gravelrama vehicles.
“I bury myself on it every year,” he said. “I might move a foot.”
Tristate Scenes is a periodic series of stories on the people, places and events that help define Greater Cincinnati. If you have a story suggestion, e-mail jjohnston@enquirer.com or write John Johnston, Tempo, Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330
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