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!
Be sure to crank this one up really loud.
Where’s the video?
Apparently I had a blonde moment this morning!
That little S10 pickup aalmost took the big ride down the hill after hitting that bail of hay.
… it would give a whole new meaning to bailing out …
Oh what about “HAY… LOOK OUT!”
Our old friend Karl Merrill fell off the mountain in his Escort Cosworth years ago. From what i understand, it wasn’t pretty!
My friend Kevin Jones who ran this year in his Subaru becamse good friends with a couple who crashed and they both suffered broken backs. They are still in the hospitial.
Here is a note I got from Kevin about the couple that crashed…..
I got to be good friends with these guys on this trip, they are a husband and wife team that race in Rally America. Wife broke her back, husband is in a body cast for back issues as well, but not as bad. they sheared a 12 inch in diameter pine tree in half. luckily were wearing hans device, hit head on at 80 mph. that is the 4th or 5th turn in. Nathan had vid of the course that he and i went over about an hour before the race, it was from his in car cam. I had asked for his advice on a couple of corners and I remember him telling me that on that particular corner he should be taking it flat out in 4th. I remember remarking that I did not think that was a good idea, we have the same gearing in our cars. He and his wife are Rally America veterans and have raced pikes peak for a few years and were very helpfull. Good people. Wife is moving extremeties and should be ok.