Electricity Was in the Air
Records fell at Pikes Peak, but not the big one
By MARK VAUGHN
AutoWeek | Published 07/03/06, 9:05 am et
Yes, electricity was in the air at Pikes Peak. It was also in the hair.
“Dude, check out your hair,” said a colleague as we stood on the 14,115-foot summit of Colorado’s 31st-highest peak, lightning striking nearby ridges all around us.
Indeed our hair, and that of everyone else’s up there in the clouds, was pointing out in all directions like a bad science project. Static electricity from the rolling black clouds was snap-crackle-popping, too. This was dangerous and we weren’t even driving a race car.
Recalling our high-school science, we were supposed to either duck-and-cover, roll on the ground until the fire was out or find an ungrounded vehicle that would not conduct electricity from lightning. We chose the latter and wound up in the unlocked 15-passenger van rented by Baja Pro Trucks. If science was right, and we hoped it was, the rubber tires of the van would insulate us from an imminent bolt-zapping.
We survived—no lightning struck the actual summit—but the top half of the 12.4-mile Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course was swamped. Race officials wisely closed the course just as yet another ripping storm unloaded snow, hail and rain in almost the same breath of Mother Nature.
It was unfortunate, because the bad weather came after a spectacular morning for the motorcycle riders at this year’s Hill Climb, the 84th in history and the 90th anniversary (no races were held during the war years). Bikes or quads broke five records on the peak, including the first-ever motorcycle run in less than 12 minutes.
Gary Trachy rode his Husqvarna 660 up the hill in 11:42.841, despite a broken clutch cable. Former record-holder Micky Dymond on a KTM did this year’s climb exactly one second slower. Both rode in the big-bore 750 cc class.
“I hope he got the record,” said Dymond at the summit, before the times were announced. “Now Gary can have it for a year and I’ll take it back next year.”
The second-fastest motorcycle class had records, too. Davey Durelle rode up the mountain in 12.00.007 to break the record in the 450 cc class, riding a bike he had borrowed the day before from second-place finisher Greg “Chico” Chicoine.
“Hey man, he’d’ve done it for me,” Chicoine said of the loaner bike. “We’re all brothers.”
It was looking like a day for the record books—cool weather, a fantastic road surface and the 1000-hp carbon-fiber-bodied, tube-frame Suzuki Grand Vitara of Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima. It looked like all that was necessary to break Rod Millen’s all-time Pikes Peak Hill Climb record of 10:04, set 16 years ago, was for the sky to not rain, snow or hail.
Of course, the sky immediately did all three.
And it did it just as the serious open-wheel and unlimited categories were getting ready to go.
Race officials first red flagged the course to wait for clearing weather. Then they let a handful of other runners ride up a few at a time during patches that looked deceptively like clearing weather. Finally, after about an hour and a half or maybe two hours, they gave up on the upper reaches of the race course and moved the finish line three miles down the mountain to a spot called The Devil’s Playground. That shortened the course to about nine miles.
The fastest run to the top at that point was by veteran Leonard Vahsholtz, patriarch of the Pikes Peak racing family of the same name. He drove his Ford truck to a time of 12:06.599 in the Open class. Vahsholtz strode about the summit sans jacket looking like a racing version of Pa Cartwright, snow collecting on his Vahsholtz Racing cap as he relayed course information down the mountain to race officials.
By that time the top third of the course was a slithering mud bog. We can tell you it’s no fun negotiating this in a big ungainly press bus at 10 mph and we can’t even imagine what it would be like at 100 mph or more in a rippin’ race car.
The mud was only bad on those upper reaches, however. The bottom two thirds of the course, just about to The Devil’s Playground, werestill drivable, especially the lower third, almost half of which was paved. So the fastest race cars were set loose on the shortened track in the drying but still-muddy conditions.
Almost right away the Dallenbach Boys went one-two in the Open Wheel category, driving apocalyptic monster-winged, purpose-built DR1 and DR2 race cars, the same kind Paul Dallenbach drove to the overall title three years ago. This year Wally Dallenbach took first in Open Wheel with an 8:22.84 while Paul took second at 8:24.23. That’s on the shorter course, remember.
After the open-wheelers, mighty Nobuhiro Tajima, the only entry in the enticingly named Unlimited category, was last to run. His twin-turbo all-wheel-drive Suzuki wailed like Godzilla as it flung gravel from Pikes Peak all over southern Colorado. One big stone cracked the windshield of the live-broadcast KRDO radio announcer who screamed at 1240 megahertz, “Holy Smokes! Holy Smokes! Holy Smokes!” as Monster roared by.
Tajima was clocked at 126.5 mph by the radar gun at a spot called The Picnic Grounds, 14 mph faster than the closest Dallenbach. He flew across the line at The Devil’s Playground so fast and so loud that the soaking-wet race fans forgot about hypothermia and cheered madly.
His time was 7:38.88, almost a minute quicker than the next-closest competitors, but three miles short of the overall record. That evening we asked him if he was happy nonetheless.
“I am 50 percent happy, 50 percent not so, because now the weather is so good.”
This year, as in a similarly wet 2002, officials declared co-champions: Vahsholtz and Tajima. Both vow to return.
You can watch the whole wild event in an upcoming show on the Outdoor Life Network, produced by the Dallenbachs and producer John Corser.
“I just looked at some of the footage and I’m just excited,” said Wally Dallenbach of the segments shot in-car, on the road and from two helicopters. “It’s not just cars going fast, there are stories here.”
One story is the latest mile of pavement laid down on the mountain. Pavement is replacing dirt on Pikes Peak at the rate of a mile a year and the whole road will be paved by 2012. Will that be the end of racing on Pikes Peak?
“We have to adapt,” said race director Phil Layton. “Just like it’s different now from what it was 15 years ago, it’ll be different in the future, too. I think you’ll see things like Trans-Am cars as the pavement creeps farther up, then, once it’s all covered, maybe even Indy Cars.”
And by then, someone will surely get up it in less than 10 minutes. Unless it snows.
Race Results
Pikes Peak International Hill Climb
12.4-mile road course
July 1
Exhibition
1. Randy Schranz, 12:18.480; 2. Mike Ryan, 12:43.667; 3. Shane Chapman, 13:36.322; 4. Ed Gaven, 15:49.106
Exhibition Bike
1. Casey Yarrow, 12:20.951; 2. Simo Kirssi, 12:27.037; 3. Ron Kirkman, 13:04.633; 4. Arlo Englund, 13:20.042; 5. Kent Peterson, 14:07.350
Quad 450
1. Carl Smith Jr., 13:55.587; 2. Victoria Behmer, 14:29.680; 3. Anthony Medina, 14:31.303; 4. Kenneth Stouffer, 15:09.618; 5. Richard Medina, 15:18.007
Quad 500
1. Jim Goertz, 12:07.985; 2. John Angel, 12:13.119; 3. Mike Ell, 12:40.221; 4. Travis Tollett, 12:48.405; 5. Theodore Bernhard, 12:50.220
Side Car
1. David Hennessy, 16:24.404; 2. Allan Wenzel, 16:26.071; 3. Stephen Hennessy, 16:35.341; 4. Lance Brown, 0 (did not finish)
Vintage
1. Eddie Mulder, 13:32.454; 2. Mickey Alzola, 13:45.435; 3. Marc LaNoue, 15:07.790; 4. John Hornbrook, 15:50.336; 5. Robert Spann, 16:01.446
250cc
1. Jeff Steinberger, 12:43.963; 2. Mark Miller, 12:47.417; 3. Chuck Lee, 12:50.197; 4. Kevin Magner, 14:07.636; 5. James Buchner, 14:20.428
450cc
1. Davey Durelle, 12:10.477; 2. Greg Chicoine, 12:42.587; 3. Darryl Lujan, 13:06.638; 4. Mark Woodward, 13:14.276; 5. Trent Johnson, 13:26.850
Supermoto
1. Greg Tracy, 12:00.007; 2. Michael Cusack, 13:16.932; 3. Brain Stephenson, 13:31.192; 4. Brain Scollon, 13:52.282; 5. Tim Buhler, 13:59.073
750cc
1. Gary Trachy, 11:46.841; 2. Micky Dymond, 11:47.846; 3. Rick Gunby, 12:50.124; 4. Glenn Cox, 13:01.835; 5. Michael Van Bibber, 14:52.400
Exhibition VW
1. Mark Miller, 14:08.917; 2. Ryan Arciero, 14:47.954; 3. Danny Sullivan, 14:51.272
Baja Pro Truck
1. Charles McDowell, 14:32.968; 2. Gustavo Vildosola Jr., 14:33.964; 3. Jason Voss, 14:36.271; 4. Rob Reinertson, 14:38.722; 5. Rick Johnson, 14:39.023
Pikes Peak Open
1. Leonard Vasholtz, 12:06.599; 2. Jasen Waples, 13:42.399; 3. Dave Carapeytan, 14:27.651; 4. David Schmidt, 15:28.909; 5. Martin Mennig, 15:52.764
Super Stock Car
1. Clint Vasholtz, 12:16.395; 2. Bobby Regester, 12:45.721; 3. Lynn Cowan, 12:56.040; 4. Layne Schranz, 13:00.195; 5. Steve Goeglein, 15:16.402
Championship
1. Butch Hardman, 13:43.995; 2. Brian Hardman, 0 (did not finish)
Mini Sprint (to Devil’s Playground only)
1. Todd Cook, 8:43.290; 2. Trevor Stewart, 9:36.390; 3. Steven Bennett, 10:30.310; 4. Richard Rychetsky, 0 (did not start)
Open Wheel (to Devil’s Playground only)
1. Wally Dallenbach, 8:22.84; 2. Paul Dallenbach, 8:24.23; 3. John Guynn, 8:49.61; 4. Jimmy Keeney, 9:04.21; 5. Steve Grieggs, 9:47.78
Unlimited (to Devil’s Playground only)
1. Nubohiro Tajima, 7:38.88
