by Lael Ewy
The
first mistake most people make when discussing the Pike's Peak
International Hill Climb is that it's a sporting event. Sure, all the
trappings are volubly and annoyingly there: banners (Ducati, and Red
Bull, Toyota and Mitsubishsi) and broadcasts (KRDO, 1240 AM, the
Voice of the Hill Climb), a generally wretched and totally canned
rendition of the national anthem for the NASCAR crowd (they still
race stock cars up the mountain after all), and hype--far more than
is required for anything as agreeably rare as this race. Obligatory
slogans like “Race to the Clouds” are slapped on marketing
materials, and sponsorships from local car dealers and banks slow the
pace of the poorly-informed color commentary. (As an important
side-note, it's generally a good idea for those providing radio
coverage of a road race to understand something about cars, about the
race in question, and about physics generally.)
But
the actual racers and a good number of the cognoscenti understand:
the Hill Climb is not a sporting event; it is an obsession.
Consider
Rod Millen, the Kiwi rally and IMSA champion who decided to take on
Pike's Peak mid-career, and whose all-wheel-drive Toyota Celica set
the record on the hill in 1994, a record which stood for 13 years. He
could have had a perfectly happy career
not having anything to do with this race.
But instead, he kept coming back, holding four more fastest times for
Hill Climbs throughout the 1990s, eventually passing off his
obsession with the race to his son, Rhys, after Rod's record was
broken by Nobuhiro Tajima in 2007. Other families, notably the Unser
dynasty and locals favorites the Donners, have risked large amounts
of their genetic legacies on Colorado's most famous fourteener.
What
explains all this? Well, it's a time-trial, for one thing. It's not
about what happens between competitors on the track as you'd see in
NASCAR or Formula 1; it's not even about the technology so much, as
everything from vintage motorcycles to factory-backed “Unlimited”
class cars run the mountain. Rather, it's about the driver's
relationship with the road, with her machine, and with her own limits
of skill and her own tolerance of fear.
I
say “road” and not “mountain” for a reason. The mountain, in
the case of this race, is, arguably, the excuse for the road. Pike's
Peak is a lovely place: a rugged 14,115 foot massif rising
precipitously off the plains and providing dizzying views of the
Rockies to the north, south, and west, and giving a sense of just how
vast the American Great Plains really are if you're facing east. This
mountain was, purportedly, what inspired Katherine Lee Bates to pen
“America the Beautiful.” So, if you're in the area of Colorado
Springs, by all means, take in the Peak. But if you're really into
mountaineering, there are 53 other fourteeners to climb in Colorado
alone that haven't been as scarred by a road.
You
see, it's the road that makes the race: 156 turns, 12.42 miles,
comprising hairpins and sweepers, kinks and switchbacks. Failing to
navigate these turns gives drivers sheer cliffs to fly off of above
the timberline and forested cliffs to fly off of below. Increasing
the challenge, road conditions constantly change, from hot and dry at
the starting line through, possibly, rain or hail, cold or snow upon
ascent. Along with this, the visual conditions will shift from
searingly bright to the flat light of overcast to odd shadows and
blinding glare. Even decisions as seemingly simple as the selection
of what tire to run (made even more difficult by now having the
entire way paved) become immensely complex and incredibly risky.
It
would be too easy to say the men and women who drive this race are
conquering a mountain—climbing this mountian can, in some ways, be
more simply done on foot with a little conditioning and some decent
gear.
What
drives the obsession that keeps fans and racers coming back is that
these women and men are conquering, really, themselves.
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