Op Ed – A Racing Travesty

The Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb is one of those events that every racer looks at with respect and admiration, if not a desire to attempt. The race has claimed lives with hairpin curves winding up and around a mountain peak with no guardrails. That is FiA Grade “Are you kidding me?!?”

Despite this, it’s almost a complete unknown that this is 100th Anniversary of The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Let that sink in for a moment.
Racers have been challenging themselves to climb up this mountain, risking life and limb, for a century.

The list of people who have made a run up this mountain is long and prestigious, and winners include names like Mario Andretti, Michèle Mouton, Romain Dumas, two Millens, a Dallenbach and four Unsers (Bobby, Robby, Al Sr. and Louis). The record of 8:13.878 is held by none other than Sébastien Loeb.

Over the past century, the mountain has been challenged ninety-four times by racers from every background and in vehicles of every type, with two wheels, four wheels, six wheels, and even eighteen wheels! Not, really, but they did have race-prepped semi trucks hauling ass up the mountain, if not freight.
And yet, nobody knows about it.

PPIHC-Shame

Here’s a screenshot of the live timing and scoring on their official website. It’s great stuff, and it’s becoming a platform for electric vehicles. One might think that environmental concerns push this, but it’s the never-ending torque from electric motors that won’t starve for power at extreme altitude. Did I mention the summit of Pike’s Peak is over 14,000 feet? The entire run has a vertical climb of about nine tents of a mile.

So yeah, this is happening.  Now, as I post this.
I’m sorry we couldn’t share anything about it because nobody really knew it was happening until it was happening.  Hopefully someone sees this and checks it out.  There’s no stream or anything, only live timing and scoring, available here: http://ppihc.livetiming.net/ppihc/.
You can also follow on the Tweeter Machine here: http://twitter.com/PPIHC.

 

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2 Thoughts to “Op Ed – A Racing Travesty

  1. Dgm

    i too wish the race was better live covered. There is a live radio feed FWIW at KRDO.com

    1. Thanks for that!
      Any source of updates is helpful!

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