Full Throttle

The answer, as everyone knows is to get to the top.

For some it’s not enough to just get to the top. It’s how many times you can hang your ass over a 1000 foot (or much higher) cliff while traversing a 180 degree (sans guardrail) turn. While enroute they must control a 800 horsepower mechanical 4-wheeled mountain goat.

For the drivers it’s an obsession. For the spectators it’s one of those “are they freakin’ nuts” moments. All together the race is the annual Race to the Clouds held each year since 1916 on Pikes Peak.

This years addition will be contested today and lists amoung it’s entrants Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan and hill climb legend Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima. Former NASCAR driver Wally Dallenbach Jr and brother Paul will also attempt to scramble up the side of “America’s Mountain.”

New Zealand’s Rod Millen holds the course record of 10 minutes, 4 seconds, set in 1994. Of all the “mountain goats” that have made the 12.42-mile trip none has been able to match the performance of Millen’s Toyota Celica. (image above)

The car is probably one of the most expensive, technologically advanced Celicas ever built and it’s estimated the cost was over a million dollars.

When Toyota moved out of WRC the Pikes Peak Celica was dropped in place of a Tacoma body shell. Toyota finally dropped the funding of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb all together in 2001.

Millen’s record once again appears to be safe. Monster Tajima was driving his new Suzuki Grand Vitara (also valued at a million dollars) when he slid off the road and into the woods a little more than a quarter-mile from the practice finish line at Glen Cove Friday.

It took safety crews over an hour to extracate his machine but plans are to work all night to effect repairs. At the time of this writing I have seen no reports on the status of repairs or whether they will effect his run at Millen’s record.

Side Notes: Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser and brother Bobby are legends ’round the Peak. The Unser family began competing in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in 1926. Bobby Unser won in stock cars, sports cars, rally cars and the IndyCar division 13 times. Al won twice and his son, Al Jr., won as well as Bobby’s son, Robbie, who last competed there three years ago.

It was very dangerous but it was amazing. It was one of those places where you did not make a mistake; said Al Unser of the timed competition over the 12.4-mile course without guardrails.

If you made a mistake, you were gone because there are some places that are 600 to 700 feet down.

You don’t make a mistake and you have to know where you are at for 12.4 miles of road. Now it’s not as tricky because the course has been oiled down and it’s almost like pavement. When we ran it, it was like loose gravel and you had to drive it like a dirt track.

In 1969, Mario Andretti scored the Indianapolis 500/Pikes Peak double.

Pikes Peak, Race to the Clouds, Rod Millen, Monster Tajima, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle