Ama Hillclimb

AMA HILLCLIMB

Talk about your uphill battles—that’s all that Jim Thompson and the other AMA hillclimbers do all summer. Thompson happened to do it better than anyone else at the mid-season AMA National Hillclimb, though, to take the Formula A share of a $6000 purse.

The event, staged this year at Westerville, Ohio, is the biggest on the hillclimbers’ calendar, involving the top 15 riders from Formula A and B divisions.

Thompson’s Yamaha was tops in a field full of veteran machinery, including Beese Wendt’s Vincent, which wound up 7th. Second in Formula A went to John Yarnell, Triumph. Canadian John William, a Honda rider, was tops in the smaller displacement Formula B field, edging Richard Soter’s Triumph. The Formula B division was even more heavily stocked with venerable British machinery, from 2nd place on down to Garry Kempton’s Harley, in 9th.