Some of club’s members just returned from Colorado and the 100th anniversary of PPIHC. Romain Dumas conquered the 14,115-foot mountain climb on a Honda-powered Norma M20 RD Limited, covering the 12.42-mile course in 8 minutes, 51.445 seconds.
Dumas’s impressive run came from a combustible, amazing sounding, powered engine – and there were very few of those. Most petrol-powered entries lacked “oomph” – with the exception of the top teams and Mikko Kataja’s 1979 Toyota Starlet (not the club’s video):
It seemed this year’s field was almost split half-and-half between combustible and electric engines.
The electric-powered vehicles were incredible to watch but horrible sounding – with tons of torque, the acceleration out of turns was mind-boggling, but the sound … oh boy. Because they run so quiet, and therefore it’s very hard to hear them coming, every electric race vehicle, even motorcycles, require a constant siren blaring as they attack the Peak — plain horrible.
All in all it was a great experience, I hope you all can get a glimpse of it from the pictures. Enjoy:
