In August 1961, 40 sports cars from all over the Rocky Mountain Region came to compete in the Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb on the old U.S. Highway 16.
The race was hosted by the Worland, Ten Sleep and Buffalo chambers of commerce in Wyoming and organized by the Sweetheart 16 Associates, named in honor of the old highway’s nickname “Sweet 16.”
Elevation at the starting line was about 5,000 feet with the finish line at 7,500 feet. It was 5 miles uphill over sharp curves, switchbacks and hairpin turns with short stretches of straight, narrow road. It was a timed race and each car had the road all to itself.
The old U.S. Highway 16 was carved out of a mountain side with sheer canyon walls rising 3,800 feet above the race course. Thousands of spectators convened on the opposite side of the canyon a quarter mile away on the newly constructed Highway 16. Three-fourths of the race was visible from this vantage point.
They were there to watch those brave — or foolhardy — enough to take those dangerous curves and steep grades. Even those to did it question their sanity.
“You kind of had to be a little crazy,” said John Moses, 65, who did the hill climb. “It wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, quite frankly. But I really loved it. It was high adrenaline and things happened incredibly fast.”
Moses competed in three races beginning in 1978. By then, the race had been shortened to 3 miles but was still a wild ride.
“You were exceeding 100 mhp on a beat-up, two-lane road with no guardrails and cliffs on either side,” he said. “And then quickly braking and slowing at a tremendous rate for the hairpin turns and corners.
“You slide in and out of those and come out of them and reach a high speed again, and then just repeat that process all the way up the canyon. It was full concentration and a little bit scary at times.”
David Francis, 74, agreed that it was an experience he also loved. Francis competed in 1969 and 1970 in his brand new, rare 1969 Mustang Boss 302 when the highway was paved and not as full of potholes.
“There was no prize money to speak of, just trophies,” he said, maintaining that race was still worth the excitement. “Some of them in the race were probably making 80-90 mph. It was just so many curves, but there were a few places through there where you could get up fast, depending on your car. I was just too busy driving to look at my odometer.”
Community Event
Before he was old enough to compete, Moses watched the race with his family and remembers the excitement of the crowd.
“I grew up watching the races. I loved them,” he said. “The whole town (of Ten Sleep) would fill up with all the contestants and the campgrounds and motels and the all the participating cars would be parked out. People would be tinkering on them and walking around looking at them.”
When the race itself was getting ready to start, people would line up on the new Highway 16, built in 1959 according to Francis, and position themselves for the show which promised to be both spectacular and nail-biting.
“There were a lot of people that liked to watch the start of the race, just to watch the burnouts because people would light their tires up and all that horsepower would be going down to the ground,” Moses said. “That first corner was a very sharp right-hand corner. So, you'd accelerate tremendously and then slam on the brakes and slide around the corner. And that was fun to watch.
“Most people lined the opposite side of the canyon. There's lots of turnouts and places all the way up to above the switchbacks on the existing highway, where people could pull out and park and watch the road race across the way.”
The Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb was strongly supported by local businesses and the communities on both ends of the Ten Sleep Canyon.
“The Willards had the feed store up there and were part of the “Sweet 16 Association,” Francis said. “Applegate had the Ford dealership, and they donated time like the wrecker. They had pretty good dealings with the Forest Service, which let them shut the road off from the fish hatchery up to Squaw Creek. Other than that, it was nothing fancy in those days.”
David Francis restored his 1969 Mustang Boss 302 after crashing it in the 1970 Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb in Wyoming. It has just over 80,000 miles on it and is still a smooth ride. (Courtesy David Francis) 
Left, The new paint job on David Francis’ car was done by Thermopolis resident, Jim Daniels, in the 1990s. The car has been restored twice. Once, the year after he crashed it in the 1970 Ten Sleep Hill Climb and again when he restored the car back to a pristine state in the 1990s. Right, 1970 brought different makes of models out to race in the Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb of Wyoming including a Mustang Boss 302, a Dune Buggy (the winner!), Spitfire and a couple of Porshe’s (Courtesy David Francis) 
Left, Number 13 was a Boss 429 driven by Bob Alford. He had a trial time of 4.43.2 but had a blown engine before completing the 1970 Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb. The newspaper reported, “During Sunday morning practice runs Bob Alford of Worland lost a connecting rod in his 429 Boss Mustang and had to sideline the car. Alford’s Mustang had been turning int times close to those of the eventual winner, Dick Sheesley, prior to the engine coming unglued. Alford then drove the finals in a borrowed car, finishing second in class B.” Right, Number 3, Layton Boher, totaled his car in the 1970 Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb in Wyoming. The top photo shows where his car flew off the old Highway 16. He walked away from the accident. Number 24 is R. Holm’s Mustang Boss 302 which had a time of 4.42.6 in the race. (Courtesy David Francis) 
David Francis looks under the hood of his restored 1969 Mustang. He wrecked the car in 1970 during the Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb in Wyoming. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
David Francis behind the wheel of his 1969 Mustang that he bought brand new on a trip to Denver. Although he had the money, his mom still had to put the title in her name because he was under 21. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
(Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
David Francis restored his 1969 Mustang Boss 302 after crashing it in the 1970 Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb in Wyoming. It has just over 80,000 miles on it and is still a smooth ride. (Cowboy State Daily Staff)
The Men — And Women — Who Dared
By 1970, the best time was by Chuck Frederick of Golden, Colorado, who drove a Lotus 19 with a time of 4:41.1 in the 1968 race. Each driver competed in his or her own class against similar cars.
“It was a great time, and they had a wide variety of contestants,” Moses said. “People that raced open wheel cars, like the Indy style Lotus. A lot of Porsches and Corvettes and home built Camaros and Firebirds. There were people that raced pickups and dune buggies and motorcycles. If it had wheels and a motor, somebody tried to race it.”
The race was risky and, although nobody died, there were plenty of crashes.
“They didn't require roll bars or anything like that. We just had a seat belt and a helmet,” Francis said, explaining that few precautions were taken other than good driving.
“People just took a normal car up there and raced. They had a lookout deal set up there with the switchbacks on that big parking area. They had two-way radios, one was at the starting line and one at the finish line, and he was just a narrator up there, as a middleman.”
In the 10th year of the race, Francis was driving his ’69 Mustang and wrecked.
“It was a real sharp corner,” he said with a shrug. “I just overcorrected. When it slid off the road, it just kind of flipped and lit on the front.”
The August 1970 Worland paper reported, “David Francis of Thermopolis broke a rear spring, lost control and flipped his Boss 302 Mustang end-over-end and sideways on one of the curves near the starting line. Francis walked away from the crash without injury. He had completed two runs in the finals and one of his earlier times was still good for second place in class C.”
There were four other crashes that day, with one hospitalization.
In that race, Richard Sheesley of Powel drove his Dune Buggy to a first-place finish in the Class A division, finishing just 12 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, Jim Starkey Jr., of Arvada, Colorado. Sheesley’s time was 4:35:6.
Slow Decline Of Hill Race
Old Highway 16 was responsible for the eventual demise of the Ten Sleep Canyon Hill Climb.
“The road got so bad with potholes,” Francis said. “The Sweetheart 16 Association members actually had to go in and do some patching on the potholes.”
By the time he raced, John said the race was no longer 5 miles as the old highway continued to deteriorate.
“It only took about three minutes or a little less to do the 3-mile race,” Moses said. “The cars went up one after another pretty quickly.”
Unlike Francis with his sports car, Moses ran in the open class, which allowed any type of car and any size engine.
“I was kind of a black sheep guy,” Moses admitted with a laugh. “I drove a Chevy Camaro, but I had a Pontiac engine in it. It was primed with black paint since I never got around to painting it. It was a car that I had pulled out of the junkyard and put together out of three or four other vehicles that I had scattered around. It was kind of a Frankenstein.”
Despite the shorter length of the race, it was still a dangerous thrill.
“When I crossed the finish line, there was a bump there and a person took a picture and the gravel was flying and the front wheels of my car were actually elevated off of the road,” Moses said. “That gives you an idea of how hard people ran. There were some guys that really pushed the limits up there.”
The Sweetheart 16 Association continued to repair the road, but by 1980, they decided the old Highway 16 was past saving when only Moses and three others showed up as their work crew.
“Most everybody enthusiastically supported it and went out and watched it and stuff,” Moses said. “But when it came to the hard work of filling potholes, the race kind of faded into the sunset.”
As for Francis, he went on to compete in other races with other cars, including an attempt at the famed Pikes Peak Auto Climb in Colorado.
His Boss 302 was restored the year following the race and again in the 1990s. Today, he still drives his Mustang around his hometown of Thermopolis as a reminder of those wild races of his youth.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
