I have vivid memories of doing Hardknot the year of the foot 'n mouth outbreak (lake district was, to all intents and purposes, closed!).
I approached from the opposite direction to monsieur HD, so I was hitting the steepest hairpins going uphill!
I was in an automatic, 3L MV6 Omega at the time, which made things a bit hair-raising, since it would lose traction at the drop of a hat - yet was fitted with traction control! Result being, try to slowly take very steep hairpin uphill, give it gas, lose grip, lose ALL power, wait for grip, power comes back on, grip goes, power goes etc. etc. etc. definitely a good workout for the sphincter when there's a mohoosive drop behind you!
