Last week saw the 89th Pikes Peak hill climb take place in the mountains of Colorado. The event sees competitors from all over the world take on the daunting task of climbing to the summit of Pikes Peak Mountain in the quickest time possible. The track is 12.42 miles in length and consists of 156 corners most of which are on the cliffs edge. The track ends at a height of 14,110 feet where the performance of the engines is 30% less than at the start due to the difference on the density of the air. The track consists of gravel and tarmac, however this will change for the 2012 race when the paving will be completed and the track will be all tarmac.
This year saw competitor Nobuhiro 'Monster' Tajima smash his own record set in 2007 by 10 seconds, completing the course in under ten minutes with a time of 9:51.278. the vehicle used to break the record was the Suzuki SX4 Hill Climb Special with a 3.1 litre, twin turbo V6 engine producing 910 Bhp! As you can see, bearing very little resemblance to the SX4 we see on our roads.
The race is known for having its fair share of crashes and this year did not disappoint, the video below shows a Pontiac Sunfire losing control and coming off the side of the mountain, amazingly due to modern safety features he got out and walked away uninjured.
