Five favourite moments from Pikes Peak

This weekend on a mountain reaching above the clouds to an elevation of 4,302.31 metres, one of the world’s oldest motorsport events will be run. The topography is sensational; the extreme weather is habitually disagreeable; and Pikes Peak, with its severe drop-offs, punishes drivers who commit even the slightest mistake.

Pikes Peak, located in Colorado, North America, has it all. The road used for the course measures 19.99km in length and carries 156 corners while constantly climbing 1,440m to the finish line which is often laced with snow and ice.

In the past handful of years, the road’s surface has been improved thanks to a smooth top coat of asphalt and Armco barriers have made it slightly safer. The 2012 running of the Pikes Peak hill climb was the last event with sections of dirt.

The 170 or so drivers who will compete this year all know the course record belongs to Frenchman Sebastien Loeb driving one of those French cars (a special badged as Peugeot 208 to be precise). Loeb was brilliant in 2013 when he conquered the freshly-paved Peak in 8:13.878. No one else since has come within 30 seconds of his record time.

Loeb’s Peugeot delivered around 650kW and 883Nm from its turbocharged 3.2-litre V6 engine and weighed 875kg. That’s just short of 1kW/kg.

Loeb’s freakish driving skills, perfected on WRC tarmac rally stages, was obvious as he attacked the Peak. The in-car footage of Loeb is well worth watching. Pay close attention to the digital speedometer as Loeb toes the carbon brakes hard and deep into corners and then literally darts away from the apex. As you’ll see, the Peugeot tops 240km/h (at 6:52 minutes in the footage) with the V6 leaning hard on the rev limiter in sixth gear.

Loeb even outruns the Bell Jet Ranger helicopter trying to film the record-setting climb.

It is an awesome drive from an awesome driver, and is without doubt one of the best climbs in Pike Peak’s 101-year old history.

If we had to choose the five best Pikes Peak drives, Loeb is on top.

A close second has to be Ari Vatanen thanks to his 1988 run in a Peugeot 405 Turbo-16.

The Finn is sensational and the footage of Ari’s climb was edited into one of the best hard-throttle documentaries of all time. Climb Dance is 5:14 minutes long and thoroughly captures the speed, sounds and dangers of Pikes Peak (when it was dirt and without Armco barriers). Ari’s hands never stop moving the steering wheel.

Climb Dance elevated Pikes Peak to international significance and pushed it into prominence. These days the hill climb attracts global attention and live media coverage.

A highlight is when Ari raises his right hand to shield his eyes from the blinding sun. Ari’s time of 10:47.22 set the course record in 1988, just 0.63 of a second quicker than Walter Röhrl, driving an Audi quattro S1, who set the previous benchmark only 12 months earlier..

Röhrl arrived at Pikes Peak amid a technical revolution in motorsport which emerged from Group B rallying. All-wheel-drive combined with turbocharging and fuel injection created an incredible jump in traction and outright performance.

Audi’s technology and Röhrl’s driving talent influenced and transformed Pikes Peak in the same way Colin Chapman and Jim Clark influenced the Indianapolis 500 with the Lotus 29 in 1963. For this reason, Audi and Röhrl have to be in the top 5.

But let’s not forget to mention Michelle Mouton who arrived at Pikes Peak in 1984 driving an earlier Audi quattro. Moulton remains the only woman to win the climb outright and she did it twice – 1984 and 1985 – setting the course record in 1985 at 11:25.39.
Japanese specialist Monster Tajima and his heavily tweaked Suzuki SX4 were the first driver/car to break the 10-minute barrier and for that they deserve a place in the top 5.

Tajima had won the climb outright for the five previous years from 2006-2010, but returned in 2011, to a course which still included dirt sections, and covered the 19.99km course in a record time of 9:51.278. His Suzuki SX4 – principally self-engineered - pushed outputs of 680kW and 888Nm from a 3.1-litre V6 engine.

In more than 25 appearances, Tajima claimed seven outright wins at Pikes Peak. He’s also one of the first drivers/constructors to recognise early the benefits of electric vehicles and campaigned an EV at Pikes Peak in 2012 - 2014.

An EV did win Pikes Peak outright in 2015, - a car designed in Latvia and driven by New Zealander Rhys Millen. Did we mention Pikes Peak now has an ‘international’ flavour?
Millen returned in 2016 to set a new EV course record, but didn’t synch the outright win.

He returns to Pikes Peak in the EV this year, with hopes of breaking Loeb’s 8:13 record time. If all goes perfectly, Millen is targeting a time beginning with the number ‘7’.
Millen’s PP03 EV is technologically on a sharp edge. It definitely defines, as did Audi in 1988, the essential technology needed to win Pikes Peak and marks the next step in an EV-lead performance revolution.

The car is said to be powered by six electric motors with a total of 1,020kW and 2,160Nm of torque. Watch the footage on YouTube; it certainly is quick and quiet like a slot-car metaphor.

What’s not right is the EV’s lack of noise. The siren used to warn spectators of the approaching Kiwi driver seems totally wrong at this venue where, for decades, V8 thunder reverberated from the surrounding hills as American legends battled for honours every June.

Audio deficiencies don’t prevent us including Millen’s Latvian Drive eO PP03 EV in our top hill climbers of all time.

Todd's Top Five: