The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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June 21, 2009

Riding up the hill for Father's Day

Annual motorcycle event draws crowd

By Dan Nienaber

MANKATO — There was a time when the whole family would join Darren DeGross on his annual trips to the Father’s Day Hill Climb at the Kato Cycle Club grounds.

Then his daughter, now 17, got into dance and boys. So now it’s just DeGross and his 15-year-old son, Zach, who drive to Mankato from their home in Elsworth, Wis. It’s one of several competitive motorcycle hill climbing events they travel to every summer.

“I’ve been doing this 20 years and Zach has been doing it for 13 years, he’s been at it since he was three,” DeGross said. “Now I’m just waiting until he gets his license so he can do the driving.”

The annual climb, which can earn participants points as an American Motorcycle Association sanctioned event, is a popular draw every Father’s Day, said John Winch, Kato Cycle Club president. The club also will hold hill drag races on July 19 and another hill climbing event on Aug. 29.

Riders on several classes of motorcycles, which are split up by the size of their engines, take turns riding up a steep hill on the club’s scenic grounds. The club’s property is just south of the Highway 60 and Highway 169 intersection, and near the banks of the Blue Earth River.

Each rider is electronically timed. If they make it to the top after a step-up jump and 90-degree turn, it’s often within several seconds.

“It’s pretty much the biggest turnout we get every year,” Winch said. “I don’t know it’s because it’s always on Father’s Day or because it’s an event that happens early in the year.”

Brent Stevensen of North Mankato is a member of the club and spends several weekends each summer riding the grounds with his sons, Shane, 6, and Haydn, 5. Shane, whose first motorcycle had training wheels, took a crack at climbing the hill Sunday.

His ride ended about halfway up. Shane, unfazed by the wipeout, just ran to the base of the steep hill and waited while his father rode the small machine down.

“I’ve been riding out here since I was a kid,” Brent Stevensen said. “My parents didn’t like dirt bikes, so I couldn’t get one until I could buy it myself.”

Darren DeGross said his goal is to get Zach competing on the professional circuit. Zach has already earned national champion honors twice as an amateur.

The question is whether he’ll keep his dad on as a manager and mechanic.

“He better,” Darren DeGross said. “After all I’ve been through.”

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