Over the past week, The Garage regular Gary Faules has been keeping on top of all the La Carrera Panamericana competitors who went up the hill at Pikes Peak. As I’ve been dealing with some technical issues at my end, I haven’t kept up to date myself. Now that my Laptop is functioning properly again, I’m going crazy with all the incredible video that is cropping up.
Youtube user allterrainvideo has put together a great highlight video, shot from a variety of different spots on the mountain. A few things caught my interest. First off, once you get up near the top, it’s really windy up there. Spectators are completely crazy, standing right along the edge of the road. There is next to no margin for error, if you make a mistake, the edge is really close. There are some incredible sounding machines hammering their way up the hill, and then there is Monster Tajima’s ride. That just has to be the coolest race car ever built!
Belting through traffic, I feel as if I should be slaloming wash lines, market carts and pavement cafes, rather than behemoth SUVs, Cube Vans and moderately enraged drivers… one of which happens to be our cameraman in a pursing BMW 535xi. There’s Italian city car flair to the Suzuki SX4, and for good reason; in essence it is a Fiat Sedici…
Regular readers know that I spent some time pushing a Suzuki through the woods of Northern Ontario. Since then, any sort of race worthy Suzuki on 4 wheels has caught my eye. I just think Suzuki should have more world wide involvement with automotive racing. The Garage Flickr pool member Roberto Blank caught this 4 wheeled Suzuki doing a 2 wheeler impression in The Netherlands.
Gene Brown the Vice President of Marketing at Suzuki was talking to us about their X-Head concept. It sort of looks like a Mini Cooper sized rescue SUV. Maybe Brown described it a little better when he said it looks like the type of vehicle a mini Terminator would drive.
Following a day of rest and some easy transit sections, the competitors in the 2007 Transsyberia Rally took on Stage 9 yesterday and it wasn’t quite so easy. Looking back though, the easy transit on Friday showed a weakness for the Porsche camp that foreshadowed the outcome of Sunday’s Special. Tires.
“With these tires you can go for a ride in an English park, but not compete in a rally in Mongolia” complained Overall Leader Armin Schwarz. Continue reading →
Once again, Nobuhiro Tajima has come out on to on the race up Pikes Peak. This year, he screamed up the mountain at a record pace of 10 minutes, 1.408 seconds in his 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara XL-7 otherwise known as Escudo. To put things into perspective, the course is 12.42 miles of climb, with no less than 156 turns! Youtube user lozo78 has posted the following video, I’m sure there will be many more to follow.
Close the office door, crank up the speakers and hold onto your hat! Continue reading →
