The Gun Counter

For the first time, an electric vehicle won the overall time this year--Rhys Millen did it in 9:07, which is a new record for electrics, if not the overall record of 8:15 by Sebastian Loeb:

http://livetiming.net/ppihc/

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/28/2015 ... b-results/

BTW, Loeb's 2013 run is something to see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y20CLumT2Sg

The race seems to be more famous in Europe than in the US, more's the pity.

Hasn't been the same since they paved it.

1300 HP in a single seat 4WD aero package. Wow. I have been there several times. As a newby in 2000 at Devil's Playground I had no idea of the power of the sun up at 14K ft. I got sunburned so bad the inside of my right ear peeled. One year we had 4" of hail. Back then they opened the road at 3:00AM for those camping out at the the top and it was still gravel. One car got loose on the turn at Devil's playground and wild gravel took out the glass windows on about 20 spectator cars in about 2 seconds. They talk about the top speeds on whats locally known as the "straightaway", as is north of 120mph. I've been up there a dozen times and I still am not sure of exactly where that's at. Dem dudes be crazy for sure.

I ran across Rhys Millen's run earlier today (found it on the Top Gear site). He says he lost 50% power about halfway up, he thinks he could have shaved another 30 seconds from his time. What's really annoying in the vid is that they evidently made the electric cars sound off with sirens as they run:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... MjsAMlXGBI

Luckily, you only hear the alarms when he corners. Here's the Top Gear page, wonder if they're feeling a bit, um, superfluous yet:

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/pike ... 2015-07-03

I wonder what the Big Red Camaro would do? It basically owns the silver state classic record..

slowpoke wrote:Hasn't been the same since they paved it.

You know, I wonder if the Freiberger and Finnigan have something in the works..

I have not been on the mntn on race day for a few years. Back then spectators could walk and sit wherever and whenever they wished. You could actually walk across the track as long as nobody was coming, aka "death race 2000". Now they have tightened things up a whole lot. Spectator areas are now strictly limited by official "hall monitor" type personalities. I suppose it is needed to control the lowest possible denominator types but still....... Prices are up and fun quotient is down a bit. From the vid - it looks like the corner at Devils Playground was just one big long snowbank this year. I've done that on a bicycle twice, going down. It takes a person way more physically fit to do the up thing. I got stopped and warned about speeding about halfway down one time. Dude was not impressed when I mentioned that I thought that was the point. Apparently, you are not allowed to terrorize tourists by passing them on a bicycle. Anyway it was a no ticket day.....

Netpackrat wrote:

slowpoke wrote:Hasn't been the same since they paved it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak_Highway

Litigation was pursued by the Sierra Club in 1998-1999, on grounds of environmental damage from the gravel portion of the road.[6] The environmental damage was caused primarily by the 150,000,000 pounds (68,038,856 kg) of gravel that washes away annually. The same amount needed to be hauled up the mountain each year in order to maintain the road surface. Environmental damage includes alpine ponds and wetlands becoming filled with gravel, and layers of gravel averaging 2 feet (0.6 m) to 4 feet (1.2 m) feet deep covering the forest floor below.[7] Pursuant to the settlement agreed by the Sierra Club and the City of Colorado Springs, the unpaved portion of the Pikes Peak Highway became a hard-surface road, despite concerns that such a project would radically change the nature of the annual automobile and motorcycle race. The paving project was completed on October 1, 2011.[8]

Because greenies.

What I find silly about that--Pikes Peak (and every other mountain) is one big pile of rocks, and it's constantly making little ones out of big ones, and they all work their way downhill constantly.