Pikes Peak. 12.4 miles, 156 corners, starts at 9,000ft and finishes at a wheezing 14,400ft. The world’s fastest, most dangerous hill climb has been running for 87 years, twisting its way up into the Rocky mountains behind Colorado Springs, USA. The current record stands at 10mins 1sec from top to bottom, set by Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima and his 1,000bhp Suzuki with a bigger wing on the back of it than that found on a Boeing. The Monster’s record may well fall this year as WRC legend Marcus Gronholm is here for the first time in an 800bhp version of his Ford rally rar. The surface is 50% tarmac (‘asphalt’ or ‘pavement’ out here) and 50% loose gravel. And we’re racing a KTM 690SMC here. Right now.
Got up at 2.30am this morning after going to bed at midnight last night. We have to be on the mountain, ready to ride, for 4am over the next three days. A great deal of Pikes happens in the thick of night! My team is ex-AMA Honda Corona boss Landers Sevier, from deep south Alabama and the the guy who gave Ben Spies his break in superbike racing. He’s on an Aprilia SXV450 that blew up two days ago; only a round-the-clock rebuild of his motor means he has a bike to ride. Landers and I have been buddies for over a decade and we specialise in massively complex, hideously expensive gigs like this. Landers is joined by John Pierce, also on an Aprilia, who drove our motorhome all the way up from Nashville, Tennessee. John is so laid-back he’s horizontal, he farts like a Northerner and is permanently glued to his iPhone.
The weather here in Colorado Springs is 30 degrees and glorious sunshine. Up the mountain at 4am that’s more like 10 degrees and there’s still snow on parts of the course. Pikes Peak is broken down into three sections for practice and qualifying. Yesterday we did the first 5 miles, the idea being four runs and then a timed qualifying run. My KTM wouldn’t start due to an electrical malfunction so I DNS’d for the first three runs, took one sighting lap on Landers’ Aprilia, and posted a time of 6min dead. The fastest guy up the hill (on an Aprilia 550 – are you seeing a pattern here?) is Dave Durrell. He’s raced at Pikes for the last 15 years, won it the last 12, and posted a first-sector time of 5min 19s, so I’m happy enough. Landers came in at a 6min 10s and John took a 6min 18s. It’s ABSOLUTELY about knowing where the route goes, if you don’t have knowledge you’re going nowhere. We’re running full Dunlop wets on our bikes and the grip they’re finding on the road sections and in the gravel is outrageous – Dunlop UK and USA sorted us right out and huge thanks to them.
Some of the cars you see go past are incredible – massive 1,000bhp monsters that sound like jet fighters. We haven’t seen them drive in anger yet as they separate the bikes and the cars until raceday – that’s all to come on Sunday 19th.
Today was sector two, much shorter at 3 miles and fully tarmacked. The air is thin up here – it starts at 11,000ft and finishes at 12,500ft. I went for a quick bicycle-ride in the paddock and nearly collapsed from hypoxia! It’s amazing how quick your body adjusts, though, and by the time the sessions started it was no problem. The KTM is running great, about 30% down on power but the big 690cc piston is thumping us out of the hairpins. Had an awesome dice with Landers – just beat him but I posted a 2min 36.8 while he did a 2min 36.9 – only a hundreth of a second between us. Seeing the true potential of getting it wrong, though. If you overshoot a braking point it’s straight down with precious little Armco to stop you going all the way to the bottom.
Tomorrow is the final practice session on the highest part of the mountain. It’s all dirt and blue-groove, we’ll pass the legendary Bottomless Pit hairpin (1,600ft straight down to certain death if you cock it up) and then it’s a rest day on Saturday before the big race on Sunday.
I’ll be posting some video when the gnarly shit starts tomorrow.
