Event: 2013 Cividale Castelmonte hillclimb in Northern Italy. Car: Gloria C8F with tubular frame chassis powered by a motorcycle engine and costs around €45,000. Driver: Federico Liber who in this clip is about to set a record run and win the event.
The legendary pikes Peak Hill Climb has always been one of my favourite rallying events of year. It's a challenge that both construtors and drivers love to take. The Pikes Peak's course is one of the most challenging, with a constantly changing weather and a very demanding track in terms of driving and car performance.
Rod Millen, now 58, held for 13 years the record of 10:04:06 set in a Toyota Celica in 1994 until Tagima "Monster" beat him by 3 seconds in his Suzuki XL7 in 2007. Today his son Rhys, with already the two wheel drive class record from the 2009 edition under his belt, decides to take on the unlimited class challenge with the ambition of being the first in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb History to go under 10 minutes and bring back the record the Millen family.
While the car's name is Genesis PM580, it doesn't share any body part with the Hyundai Genesis Coupe exept maybe the 3.8 L V6. The body is fully built from carbon fiber and the car looks more like a Le Mans racer than the hill climbers we used to see over the past years. The car features a massive rear wing placed very low compared to the giant rear wings that we used to see on the Pikes Peak unlimited class competitors. To read a fully detailed report that includes every little detail on this very particular rallying beast, head on to Autoblog.
Last year Ford introduced its factory backed 800+ Hp Pikes Peak Spec Fiesta with Professinal WRC driver Marcus Grönholm on the wheels to take on the challenge. However, they failed to win the event beaten by the unstoppable Tagima who failed to match his 2007 record. This year, we have new contenders, new ambitions and new beasts. So let's see if Rhys Millen will live up to his reputation of favourite in this year's race.
Here's the footage of the two wheel drive class record run by Rhys Millen in the 2009 edition:
The legendary Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is one of the major rallying events that started back in 1916. The race takes place every year in the Colorado (USA) mountains. It is to rallying, what Le Mans is to prototype racing.
The course starts at an elevation of 2 862 m (9,390 ft.) and ends up at 4 300 m (14,110 ft.). It's 19.98 Km (12.42 miles) long and is composed of 156 turns. It's also a mixture of gravel and pavement with the paved part 9.65 Km (6 miles) long.
The so called "Race to The Clouds" features numerous categories that include quads, bikes, sidecars, open wheels and even trucks! Of course the most popular category is the Unlimited, in which competitors usally bring cars exclusively built for the event, with power figures sometimes up to 1000 Hp. The Suzuki XL7 Pikes Peak competitor shown in the picture above belongs to the unlimited category, it is driven by Nobuhiro Tajima who by the way holds the absolute course record of 10:01.408. This record braking run was achieved in the 2007 edition of the race. Tagima "Monster" brought a lot of interesting Pikes Peak competitors like the so familiar to Gran Turismo players (including me), the Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak Version or the 2009 edition winner: the Suzuki SX4 Pikes Peak Version.
