The Calm Before The Storm

It is very quiet on the mountain the night before the fans head up the mountain in groves for the big race. It's the lull before the storm. In the brief calm before the storm, the drivers and teams prepare themselves for the opening of Hell's Gate and the wrath of what is to come.

Then suddenly they notice that everything goes quiet? The air seems still and calm and even the birds stop singing and quickly return to their nests. Then after a few minutes, you feel a change in the air, and suddenly a sound of raw horsepower comes from far below that tells you they aren't fooling around.

This storm happens every year at this time and the locals call it Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and the thunder is loud and exciting. This is the storm we all want to be square in the middle of right where we can absorb the brunt of it.

The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas in which the Count of Monte Christo held his glass high and said, “Life is a storm my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout, as you did in Rome, ‘Do your worst…for I will do mine.’”

Tomorrow, the storm better known as Pikes Peak will begin and some will be shattered on the rocks but join me as we hold our glass high like The Count of Monte Carlo did that day long ago in Rome and lets hope and pray that it will be Paul Dallenbach who is left basking in the sunlight tomorrow.