2017 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb

2:30AM at the Hilton Garden Inn, Colorado Springs Airport

Saturday and Sunday blended together. My plan was to lay down at 7PM, so I could possibly get 8 hours of sleep for race day at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. If I played my cards right, I'd be able to get to the highest point allowed for spectators, Devil's Playground. At 13,000 feet, it was a vast, treeless outpost with snow on the ground year-round. On the hill climb's website they warned of extreme altitude sickness, especially for those not accustomed to the mile-high and up altitudes of Denver, Colorado Springs, and the surrounding outdoor playgrounds of the Rocky Mountains.

I came from 800 feet a few days prior. On Saturday, a blinding headache sidelined me for a few hours. Pressure like I'd never felt, the sliver of light that escaped my hotel blinds was a nagging presence as I buried my head in pillows.

The website also warned spectators not to consume alcohol or soda on the mountain, as the carbonation in both would lead to "gastric distress." With that term alone, I decided to stick to water.

In the murky darkness of the renovated hotel room, I tried to figure out how to operate the single cup coffee maker. One cup of water, one bag of coffee, one packet of powdered creamer, one sugar. Downstairs, the front desk guy took one look at my sad cup of coffee and offered the downstairs vat of Kenya blend he'd just brought out.

By 3:00 I was in the car, headed for the shadowy outline of the hills. There's a guy on a motorcycle with Idaho plates, and I follow him from the Springs to the entrance of Pikes Peak Highway. It's a two-lane lined with old diners and souvenir shops; I'd scouted it out the day before.

We're funneled into a holding area, a North Pole-themed amusement park parking lot where dozens of idling cars had already gathered. I killed the engine and fired up my battery-powered radio. A Mazda 3 is parked in front of me and four young guys pile out and light up cigarettes. Most of them are in basketball shorts, the temperature here is around 50-degrees.

Twenty minutes later, our group of six cars is released and we snake up towards the gate. It takes us about six miles to reach the pits, which were assembled ahead of the start line. Driving under the start line, I snapped a picture, then watched as the outside temperature on my digital display dropped into the forties.

On the way up I was stuck behind two wheezing Chrysler products, not to mention I was in one as well. My grandparents were kind enough to lend me their Jeep Commander on short notice and, although it had a comfy ride and some amenities alien to their other Jeeps (two early-2000s Cherokees), it had one major failing.

Jeep, for some reason, had chosen to stick their garden-variety, 3.7-liter V6 into the Commander, a 4600-pound Land Rover Discovery look alike. This meant 210 horsepower at sea level and god knows how many at 9000 feet and above.

Directly in front of me was a Chrysler Pacifica with Iowa plates. The guy behind the wheel was playing an infuriating tap dance with the brakes on the climb up, but it was probably because the car in front of him was a Dodge Neon.

By the time we'd breached the timberline, the sky had turned an inky purple, with wisps of clouds and an eerie, blanketed view of the far horizon that I caught glimpses of out the side window.

That eerie feeling continued as we reached the parking lot at Devil's Playground. Clouds coated the landscape in a thick fog, lights of one police car blocking the road up bounced off as people wandered out of their cars trying to get their bearings.

The quiet at that altitude is jarring. Since there's hardly air for the sound to get trapped in, you can hear conversations happening 50 yards away. As I walk around the parking lot, I peek into cars. most people are asleep, huddled in blankets. Two bodies snugly seated upright inside a 911 Turbo; a guy behind my car sleeps alone in his Lexus SUV, the breaking morning sun illuminates the interior like a floodlight.

And that sunrise. I stood on a hill that overlooks one of the hairpins below our parking area. This area is called the Ws. On the other side of the road, there's a steep dropoff with a matte grey background of clouds. This is where the media vehicles and race officials are parked. The sun rises behind these clouds, spreading a hazy orange light on the martian landscape. I look towards it, then I look back at the people gathered on the hill; a woman wrapped in a Denver Bronco's blanket; a couple setting up a tent; people huddled under awnings in heavy jackets.

It's hard to describe the feeling. Being outside  at the end of June in a Stormtech coat, when it's 40-degrees one minute and sunny the next. Or the fact that it's still a racing event that attracts racing spectators--people were drinking Coors by 10a.m.--but one that almost by design still attracts the diehards.

8:01AM, Time to Race to the Clouds

Motorcycles were the first group to run, starting at 8a.m. It was hard to make out the sequence of cars and bikes running, because there's no qualifying information on the race website. I learned the day before at the Penrose Museum that officials still have issues with timekeeping, thanks to the harsh geographical setting.

An alarm sounded the arrival of Ohio State's electric motorcycle. The thing sounded like a hyperactive go kart as it shot by, giving a little wiggle as it slightly lost traction out of the corner. One of the kids from their team spoke to me at fan fest, telling me they were hoping to break the ten minute mark.

Electric cars and motorcycles have a long history at the hill climb, dating back to 1981, when Joe Ball took 32 minutes to reach the peak after stopping near the finish line to let his batteries cool. 

Tim Eckert, part of a long lineage of hill climb competitors, set a new record for electric cars in 2002 with his Compact Power ER2. The 1300-pound, single seat racer built in Monument, Colorado was powered by a 223-horsepower electric motor and several LG Large Cell lithium ion batteries. 

French rally driver Sebastien Loeb still holds the all-time record of 8:13, but EVs are sure to catch up. Nobuhiro Tajima, already twice a Hill Climb record breaker by 2012, set a blistering sub-9 minute qualifying run in his EV, but the car didn't finish due to a power transfer problem on race day. In 2013, Carlin Dunne won the motorcycle title overall on a Lightning fully-electric motorcycle. By 2015, Rhys Millen had cracked the ten-minute mark with a 9:07 run in a Drive eO PP03.

This year there was only one electric car competing, the Faraday Future FF91. This imitation Model X with a matte black vinyl wrap. It finished with a middle-of-the-field time of 11:25, just ahead of a 2002 Camaro, piloted by hometown favorite Rob Moberly.

Electric motorcycles fared much better, there were three of them. The Buckeye Current finished a minute shy of its goal, while another electric motorcycle ridden by Japanese racer Yoshihiro Kishimoto did a 10:59 run. 

As the day wound on, the weather started to change. The changes got quicker as the temperature down in Colorado Springs got higher. One minute, I'd have my hoodie up to block the sun; the next, I'd have hat and gloves on trying to stay warm. 

People filtered back to their cars to nap, eat, and stay hydrated. During the day I ate three cups of greek yogurt, four giant pieces of fried chicken, half a dozen oatmeal creme pies, a bag of goldfish crackers, three apples, and three bananas. Not to mention drinks. 

Early in the day I had to focus on not winding myself too much by walking around. Later in the day it had gotten better, because then I knew I had enough food to last until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, when the race was over. But it was a weird game of modern, city folk survivalism. I saw several people throughout the day who seemed to be idling their cars the entire time.

By 2PM, the weather had gotten downright dicey. Thunder cracked in the distance. Dark clouds closed in on the picturesque mountain vistas I'd photographed earlier that morning. Now it looked like a Game of Thrones set. Winter was in fact coming.

One of the last drivers to make the summit was Yuri Kouznetsov, driving a Nissan Skyline. Kouznetsov was Jeremy Foley's co-driver in 2012, when his Mistubishi Lancer tumbled over the edge near 16-mile. 

Kouznetsov blasted through thick fog on one of the last straightaways towards the summit, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was thinking of that moment back in 2012. 

Despite a lack of guardrails and general danger inherent to a race like this, only six people have lost their lives during the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Chock that up to strict safety regulations, a mutual respect for the mountain, or luck, but it's probably a combination of all those things. 

Around three, we started seeing quarter-sized hail, and people rushed to their cars for a spot in line to get down the mountain. A guy in a Nissan Xterra raged as another man in an old Suburban came from the far end of the lot and drove straight down the open aisle to the front of the line. 

But the police said it'd be another hour until we even got going, that four more cars were set to run, and officials would wait until 3:30 to call it for weather. 

Those remaining four ended up running only to Glen Cove, several miles down the course. Although the race has never been cancelled, despite fire, hail, wind, rain, and snow over the years, it has been postponed and shortened due to the weather. 

By word of mouth, we discovered that the cars that had reached the summit were coming down for a parade lap. One young kid asked a police officer if his group could walk out to the road, and on the officer's approval, a flood of people walked out onto the Pikes Peak Highway. A line of spectators stretched for a quarter mile as drivers started their way down.

But the good nature of the crowd was short lived. Animal instinct kicked in as people battled to get out of the parking lot first. Near the front of the line, a Ford F150 driver bucked at a Subaru Legacy, boxing him out to get one place ahead in the traffic line. Soon, people behind me started reversing to cut around the outside edge of the parking lot. I was parked in the middle and somehow got out last. 

But those who were so eager to leave one of the most unique spectacles in all of motorsports got their just desserts, as it took everyone two hours to finish their descent. 

As I turned left, away from the snaking line of traffic that continued all the way to Colorado Springs, I thought about the drivers, teams, families that spend all year to get to this perilously long day. 

In 1916, Rea Lentz took home $2,000 and the Penrose trophy at the first running of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Today, winners take home even less money. Participants accept that they're probably going to lose out financially, but gain in areas of automotive innovation and fan enthusiasm. 

Even more, they gain something that's virtually gone in modern, professional motorsport: the mythical, local lure of a race so unique that it's yet to be duplicated. In many ways, it can't be.


Here are some more of my favorite photos from the race:

The Toyota HiAce is Van-tastic

If you grew up in the United States, chances are vans have occupied a weird space for you. Vans are seen as creepy, windowless chambers driven around by equally shady characters. Even at their best, most vans here are driven hard and put up wet, workhorses that are the backbone of independent contractors, plumbers, electricians, painters and service teams. In Japan, though, vans have enjoyed better public opinion.

This is largely thanks to the Kei class, which classifies certain cars for lower insurance rates based on their exterior dimensions and engine displacement. Cars like the Honda City Turbo stole hearts early, soon selling intentionally on the cuteness Kei car's squat proportions made possible. Soon, the Kei truck and Kei van came to be. Many of these trucks and vans could hardly fit a decent-sized cake in their cargo bays, but they were perfect for small deliveries on the jammed streets of Tokyo.

A collection of Kei commercial vehicles at Lane Motor Museum

The Toyota HiAce is not a Kei van. Toyota launched the van in 1967, two years after Nissan introduced the Homy (Caravan). Like the Homy, the HiAce was a cab-over light commercial chassis that offered almost any configuration you could think of. Pickup trucks, minibuses, commercial vans, taxis and ambulances were built on Toyota's H Chassis.

A 4.0-liter V8 found its way into ambulance versions, but all other shells were limited to, we'll call them practical, gas or diesel four cylinders.

This brings us to the HiAce I stumbled upon yesterday. It was parked near Piedmont Park in Atlanta and wore Florida plates, with a Subaru catalog in the windshield, no less.

It's an H100 van and, for the sheer oddity, I'll share just a small handful of the names this van went by during the H100 generation, which lasted from 1989 to 2004.

In most places, if it wasn't referred to simply as the HiAce, folks knew this van as the Toyota Commuter. However, in China, this van is badged as: the Kingstar Neptune; the Toyota RegiusAce; the Great Wall Proteus; the Foton View C1; and, my personal favorite, the BAW BJ5030XXY61. No, I'm not kidding.

As evidenced by it's extensive name catalog, though, the HiAce is an incredible example of what makes vans so interesting. Name another type of car that needs to be as configurable, robust and user-friendly as a van. Vans are everywhere; the airport, outside of hotels and bars, in nearly every neighborhood in America (and probably worldwide) at any given time, outside of schools and post offices and flower shops and most certainly in the parking lot where you work.

Even though the HiAce is markedly less intimidating than a Chevy Express with "CANDY" spray painted on the sides, it can still look suspect from a far. Hey, this one's a driver, okay.

And that's probably what makes vans so creepy here. They're the perfect creepy vehicle, because they blend into almost any populated backdrop--and often stay there.

But the HiAce proves that vans can be something worth celebrating rather than vilifying. They highlight the fun and functional aspects of vans, two of their most important characteristics. Besides, have you ever seen a threatening cab-forward car?

Carspotting in Buckhead

North of downtown Atlanta sits the affluent community of Buckhead. In the early 20th century, this was a heavily-wooded area full of hunting estates owned by wealthy Atlanta businessmen. Now, it's still home to the city's wealthiest and along with them, high-end retail at Phipps Plaza and Lenox Mall.

And, no surprise, it's also home to some pretty nice cars. Your best opportunity to see some of these is on a sunny weekend like this one, where I was in the area picking up a new camera lens. Sure, there are garden variety (for the wealthier among us) Range Rovers and Mercedes G-Classes, but you're also likely to find a few trophies. Here are some I ran across during my walk around Buckhead.

Starting out, we've got a stealthy one. The P38 Range Rover (that body style produced from 1997 to 2003) may not seem like anything special initially, but when you consider some of the many perceived and real gremlins of this truck, you'll understand why. These take a lot of care (and money) to keep on the road, especially as a daily driver. Electrics follow the common British rule that if it can break, it will. Not to mention early air suspension that was haphazard at best.

The Discovery also makes an appearance here. Trusting a Landy to travel 600 miles one-way may not necessarily be a fool's errand, but it's one you're bound to take with a bit of baited breath. However, it looks like this Rover, plated in the District of Columbia, has done just fine.

Keeping the Union Jack flying is this Aston Martin Vantage, which announced its presence long before it came into view.

Character need not always come with intricate repair jobs, though. This is evidenced by the Acura NSX, particularly this first generation, which uses the V6 from an Accord. Its shape is a home run too, representing the glory days of enthusiast-minded Hondas.

And to conclude, a blast from the past. Chevrolet's split window Corvette Stingray is now one of the most collectible Vettes you can buy, and this one cruised down Peachtree Street like it was the in the Woodward Dream Cruise.

2017 Atlanta International Auto Show

The Atlanta Auto Show is usually a quiet affair, normally constrained to only a few prototypes. Cars don't get unveiled here, but it's still a good opportunity to climb around in luxury sedans and to see some neat concepts under convention hall lights.

This year's notables include the Kia Stinger, a twin-turbo sedan whose styling would be bold for any car maker, but somehow fits just right into KIA's lineup. The Korean manufacturer's auto show real estate was impressive; hardly a surprise, given the location of major manufacturing centers in West Point, Georgia and Montgomery, Alabama.

Another manufacturer that's recently started calling Atlanta home is Mercedes-Benz. Just a few feet away, final work is being done on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which will be the new home of the Atlanta Falcons and the burgeoning Atlanta United Football Club. And Mercedes brought out the big guns--a 4x4-and-then-some G550 and a Maybach S650 convertible, along with a healthy spread of AMG offerings.

You may have noticed a post here a couple of months ago when I visited the Jim Ellis Alfa Romeo dealership, and this brand was a new reappearance at the Atlanta Auto Show. Several Giulias were on display, along with a 4c. Fiat was also in attendance, showing off the Miata-based 124 Spider.

Ford continues to impress with bold, inexpensive cars aimed at the enthusiast. Focus and Fiesta ST made mandatory appearances, but the stage was really being stolen by the Focus RS--with a shocking $41,000 sticker to match. Ford also displayed Mustang and Expedition prototypes, a nice touch.

A final surprise? Volkswagen. Hot water doesn't begin to describe the trouble this mammoth auto maker has been in the past few years. But only a company as big as Volkswagen Auto Group could still manage to bring out both compelling and exciting vehicles. Much to my delight, there were two VWs with manual transmissions on the show floor--and not the ones you'd think would be there.

A Jetta Sportwagen and a Jetta Alltrack (think Audi Allroad but more down-to-earth) both sported six speed manuals and more than agreeable price tags. Enough to make you rethink even a Japanese mainstay --whispers-- Honda Civic.

Of course, this is far from an exhaustive look at the show. Here are some more of my photos from the 2017 Atlanta International Auto Show: