I’m skipping the Pacific Northworst 24 Hours of LeMons race, so that I can attend this weekend’s Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb. I headed over to the mountain earlier today to drive the course, scout out good camera spots, and check out teams wrenching on their cars in motel parking lots.
The day started out in true low-budget-racing fashion, with my Civic’s rusty muffler falling off. Turns out spending its first decade in Chicago had some long-lasting effects, though 200,000 miles on the original exhaust system isn’t bad. Cadillac Bob, captain of the Swiss-cheesed, 454-powered LeMons AMC Marlin team, was joining me, and he suggested that we just remove the offending muffler and drive with a straight pipe. I had some idea of buying a cheap glasspack at Autozone and attempting to quiet the car’s D15B7 that way, but Bob’s idea sounded much simpler.
The car was loud, but tolerable for a 45-minute highway drive from my home in Denver to the base of the 14,115-foot mountain. The drones, roars, and howls emitted during the climb up to the summit got to be pretty aggravating, though. By 14,000 feet, the D15’s alleged 102 horsepower felt like about 50. Still, we got there.
The course for Sunday’s race was quite picturesque at 25 MPH. At race velocities… well, you’d have to be totally out of your freakin’ mind to take this road at speed. Endless switchbacks, guard-rail-less stretches with thousand-foot sheer drops below, road surface ranging from nice asphalt to bad asphalt to dirt, and the higher you get the more the lack of oxygen messes with your brain functions. Oh, it’s gonna be great!
How about a little trip up the hill in Ari Vatanen’s Peugeot?
After we rolled back down the mountain, we cruised the main drag in nearby Manitou Springs. Pike’s Peak racers often set up shop in their motel parking lots, and this serious-looking Shelby GT350 was the first race car we spotted.
This may be the best tire/wheel setup I’ve ever seen on a vintage Mustang. This ’67 will be racing in the RMVR/Vintage class on Sunday, and I’m looking forward to seeing it in action.
Parked nearby was this 2010 Camaro, entered in the Time Attack division; the car had suffered some oil pan damage during practice this morning and had just returned from a local welding shop.
Just down the street, we spotted what I took to be a weirdly modified Suzuki SX4. The body looked wrong, but that big S must be a Suzuki logo, right?
Wrong! This is a 2005 Seat León Supercopa, which this sponsor-less team had flown over from Spain in order to take on the world’s top hillclimb event.
We’re dealing with some very serious racing addicts here, and they were kind enough to take a break from their wrenching/tuning frenzy to answer questions from a pair of American car guys geeking out on their never-seen-in-America race car. In fact, this is the first SEAT I’ve ever seen in North America, period.
The SEAT goes up against 20 very tough competitors in the Time Attack class on Sunday (here is a PDF of the entry lists), including the usual Evos and WRXs, so it will be interesting to see how Spanish steel fares against all that Japanese iron. Check in Sunday for the Pike’s Peak madness!
Very cool … the driver is Harald Demuth, a sometime WRC driver (finished 5th in the ’82 RAC Rally). I don’t believe he competes in the Supercopa, though.
Whither Caswell?
Turns out I don’t have Caswell’s phone number. I hope to find him on Sunday.
I enjoyed a fun bit of coincidence earlier this year: the nice man who replaced the front windshield on an SHO Taurus I was fixing up for a friend is the driver for the Patriot Missile, a Wells Coyote chassis sporting the same Yamaha V6, albeit in a slightly(!) more powerful state of tune.
Count up the La Carrera cars. Doug Mockett’s 55 Olds is one of the fastest cars in Mexico every year. I was running 145 MPH on a road and he not only passed me, he shifted gears and drove away from me.
The Mustang’s trailer had Carrera stickers.
I see SEATs here in San Diego fairly often, since it seems the border has migrated to a part time checkpoint by Camp Pendleton. Down here, anything goes when it comes to vehicles registered in Mexico.
I’ve seen a couple of SEATs in LA as well (from SEAT of Tijuana, of course).
Mr. Martin, would you keep a camera at the ready for Quattro Anniversary entrants ? please and thank you. best to all: race happy
I had to send that Mustang picture to my Dad. Not only did he have one but he lived at the Silver Saddle during winters in the early 60s to get out of Colorado Springs back when he was in NORAD. Great pictures.
“At race velocities… well, you’d have to be totally out of your freakin’ mind to take this road at speed.”
Not really, but it’s a big competitive advantage.
The story of the Miller 4WD Indy car being brought out of retirement to run Pike’s is pretty cool if you get a chance to read it. Pike’s Peak is on my list dream gear-head pilgrimages.
What was Vatanen using, a 205 or a 405?
405 according to the credits at the end of the film.
Basically legendary 205 T16’s tech in new body which looked like 2 door 405 but was bespoke as there weren’t coupe version of 405 available. Only 2 cars were built one for Dakar and one for hill climbs.
http://www.arivatanenrally.com/en/cars/peugeot-405-t16-pikes-peak.html
Ah, Manitou Springs, I’d almost forgotten about that place. I wound up there on a foggy, snowy day after perusing the Garden of the Gods. Good thing, too, as it allowed me the opportunity to get my wife and daughter some lovely lapis lazuli and silver jewelry as gifts.
That DarkHorse Camaro looked like a demon from hell in the dirt – the photos don’t do the paintjob any justice.