Pikes Peak International Hillclimb Trip Report

[Kiwi]

Pikes Peak International Hillclimb in a BMW M3
by Jamie Melhuish

On August 12th, I raced my 1995 BMW E36 M3 (normally aspirated) at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb in Colorado. Competitors came from all over the US and the world: Russia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, and France. I raced in the Time Attack division (street cars modified for racing).

Map of the course is here: http://director.usacracing.com/ppihc/files/pdfs/map.pdf

I drove from Massachusetts to Colorado in two and a half days, towing the BMW on a car trailer with my Honda Odyssey minivan. Towed weight was about 3800 lbs including car, trailer, and tools and tires. Another several hundred pounds inside the van, all up weight close to 9000 lbs. Driving to Colorado at about 75 MPH, the Odyssey averaged 15.3 MPG. Driving from Colorado to Massachusetts, the Odyssey averaged 18.9 MPG. Arrived in Colorado on Monday morning, worked at Mitch William's shop to fix up a few minor items on the car, then to Mitch and Alissa's house to get vinyl graphics cut. The car now looks more like a race car! Drove to the Lone Duck Campground on Route 24 just near the Pikes Peak highway road. Got to sleep around midnight. I also picked up a cold which meant I was sick all week for practice and still sick on race day.

Tuesday - Registration and Technical Inspection
I had not looked at the Pikes Peak road in person yet, so Tuesday morning I drove the road in the van. A pretty amazing road and the scenery was just outstanding. Hurried down the mountain at slow tourist speed, got to the campsite by noon and towed the BMW down to Pikes Peak International Raceway which is about 40 minutes away. Arrived just in time for registration and tech inspection for Time Attack. I was sweating that something would be wrong and require fixing; no worries. All good, except there was a lot of discussion about harnesses (seat belts) and the age limitations on SFI and FIA belts. Many people with FIA harnesses could fail the inspection because PPIHC (in 2012) would only allow belts that are under two years old. FIA belts are good for five years...

Rookie orientation was uneventful; an experienced Pikes Peak car racer gave a very good overview of the tricky sections of the course. The motorcyle racers got their own overview from the bike perspective.

Wednesday - Practice Upper Section
We get up at 2:45 AM for practice, gates open at 3:30, practice starts at 5:30. Practice is all over by 9:30 AM. The first day of practice for the Time Attack division was the upper section, from Devil's Playground to the summit. 13,000 feet to 14,100. No familiarization run, just straight into fast practice runs. I had little hope of doing well in my division as almost every other car is a turbo. Rhys Millen's Hyundai has around 750 HP. For me, the drag up to Cog Cut turn was really slow, my M3 is down to about 140 WHP. But I took the corners pretty fast. I didn't find the Wednesday practice results until Qualifying on Thursday morning, but was really happy to discover that I placed fourth in Time Attack out of 20 cars with a time of 3:06.4

Thursday - Qualifying Lower Section
Today was practice (and qualifying) on the lower section, from the start line to just below Glen Cove. My first run went very well, no mistakes, and felt pretty fast. I again surprised myself and placed fourth in Time Attack. On my second run, I went off the road at the Sump, three corners before the end of the section. The back of the car stepped out rapidly (oversteer) and I tried to catch it but the rear wheels slid into the ditch. The car rotated and ended up facing downhill. I managed to get it out of the ditch without having to red flag any cars.

After looking over the video, I believe the reason I spun so rapidly was because the left rear tire was on the double yellow lines, which are extremely slippery. The bike riders had talked about this but I didn't think it would affect the cars so much. Most of the damage was to the exhaust. Much thanks to Cyrus who cut out the exhaust at the middle of the car and welded on a little section to point at the ground. Thanks also to Jimi and TK for getting the welder for us and helping with stuff. The car was fixed up ready for Friday practice, a little louder, a little lighter, and a little more bent! I had worried a lot about not qualifying, since the Time Attack field is almost exclusively turbo cars. But my first run was good enough for 7th in Time Attack with a time of 4:44.338 so I'm racing on Sunday!

The other cool story from qualifying was Rhys Millen congratulating me for being quicker than him around the final 180 degree corner in qualifying. Rhys' dad, Rod Millen, had a radar gun and was checking speeds. Phillip Thomas wrote this in hooniverse: (http://hooniverse.com/2012/08/17/donuts ... -mountain/)
Day two of testing was held on the lowest section, from the start up to Glen Cove. When the cars started rolling in, I noticed a guy on the last corner with a radar gun. Curious, I walk over to go check him out after tire temps were done. Brianne, Rhys, and Jamie Melhuish in his ’95 M3 were the last cars to come around. Out of curiosity, I ask him about the cars.
“Ah, yeah, the red Subaru was 53 mph”
“What about Rhys?”
“The same, actually, 53 mph”
At that point the white M3 comes around,
“And…. 57 mph.”

So I posted the second-quickest speed through that corner out of all cars in Time Attack and Unlimited divisions (not sure about Open Wheel), only David Donner in the Palatov was 1 mph faster.

Friday - Practice Middle Section
Up at 3 AM. The middle section starts from Glen Cove and runs to Devil's playground. The Honda Odyssey towed the M3 on the trailer up to Glen Cove at 11,440 feet. No worries. First run was OK, finding it hard to get around the hairpins. Front end grip is pretty good but the inside rear wheel is spinning a little, though not as much now since we stiffened the front anti-roll bar. This section of the course is hard for my car since it is a stop/start drag from each hairpin up the steepest section of the hill.

My second run was a little quicker but I had a really scary incident. I came flying into a hairpin and stepped on the brakes, but not much was happening. I fought the brakes and steering, overshot the apex, and finally got the car turned. The rest of the run was alright but the overshoot scared me. It turned out that one of the open wheel cars had dumped oil on several corners. My last run was better and I eventually placed 10th out of 20 cars, my time was 3:11.47

Friday Night
Went down to Colorado Springs on Friday night for Fan Fest. Definitely an experience! Over 35,000 people hanging out on 10 closed-off city blocks. Showed the M3 from 5 PM to 10 PM then packed up and back to the campground. Some really cool cars there including Walter Roehrl's Pikes Peak winning Audi S1.

Sunday - Race Day
Up at 3 AM, through the toll gates at 3:30. We had already set up the pits with the race car and trailer on Saturday, so we just drove up in the Odyssey van, myself, Cyrus, Jimmy (Cy's dad), and the two dogs. Went to sleep again for a couple of hours, then up for the driver's meeting at 8 AM.

All the bikes raced first. Greg Tracy and Carlin Dunne had an epic duel on the 1205 Ducatis, each breaking 10 minutes, with Carlin winning by 6 seconds with a time of 9:52.819. The Unlimited class chose to run first of the car divisions and they had a nice clean road and dry weather. Unfortunately a lot of the unlimited cars broke including the top qualifier Jean Philippe Dayraut in the Dacia Duster. David Donner in the Palatov came through for the win at 10:04.652.

The electric car class was really interesting. A good battle among the big factory teams. However Monster Tajima's car filled with smoke at the start line and he ran only a couple of corners before shutting it down. He was not at all happy. Elias Anderson raced a home-built lightweight electric car to 3rd in class and 13th overall with a time of 11:00.857. The fastest electric was the Toyota/Radical coming in at 10:15.380.

The Open division Porsche GT3 R driven by Romain Dumas (Le Mans winner) was really fast and came in at 9:46.181. However now the weather started rolling in, with rain drops at the summit. Quite a number of cars had crashed or broken, bringing out the red flags often and requiring re-runs for drivers. This slowed down the event considerably. Thunder clouds, lightning, and light rain started at the summit and began working down to lower elevations.

The Time Attack class started and Rhys Millen had a dry road until the Boulder Park near the summit where he hit the wet. Rhys still put in a time of 9:46.164, good for the class win and the overall win, just beating Dumas by 17 thousandths of a second. By the time I started, reports were of rain and wet roads down to Devil's playground, or maybe down to the "W's" - the switchbacks below Devil's Playground. I was given the option of changing tires, but I chose to run the Hoosier Radial slicks (with a single circumferential groove), good for dry and damp roads, but not for running or standing water.

As I started my run, I felt that the steering wheel was off-center. What's wrong? Did I bend a tie rod? Is the suspension suspect? I just kept going, not using the 9 o'clock / 3 o'clock hand position, but simply holding the wheel rim wherever I needed. I put in a good run up to Glen Cove and then saw a red flag waving vigorously. I shut it down and waited. Apparently a car had gone off somewhere in the W's. It turned out to be a nicely-prepared Mitsubishi Evo driven by Jeremy Foley which went off just below Devil's Playground on a very steep hillside, it rolled at least 10 times. The driver was air-lifted by Medi-vac to hospital but luckily had little injury. The co-driver was taken down by ambulance, he was also not badly hurt. I drove back down for my re-run. At the bottom, I found that my quick release steering wheel was one notch to the left. Back a notch and the steering is all straight again!

We had to wait for 40 minutes or more while the Evo drivers were evacuated. By now the weather had dropped rain all the way down to the Sump corner below Glen Cove. So two-thirds of the course was now wet. We were given the option to change tires. Only myself, Tim Hardy (BMW E30 325 with a turbo M50 motor), and Patryk Matecki (turbo Dodge Neon) stayed on slicks (A6's for Tim and Patryck). I made a very conscious decision to drive carefully; I wanted to get to the top! I didn't want to wreck. I was pretty quick on the lower dry section but when I hit the wet, I slowed down a lot. Even being careful, the car was oversteering, slipping and sliding on the painted lines, and generally a bit sketchy. I made it to the top without any mistakes or incidents. Shortly after at the summit, lightning was cracking in the sky and hail poured down covering the cars and road. Drivers on that run had really scary road conditions.

I don't think there was much advantage to having wet tires, except in a few sections. The Time Attack division had a bunch of people with close times, Brianne Corn (Subaru STi) at 12:01, Scott Moliter (Subaru Impreza) at 12:04, Fred Veitch (911 turbo) at 12:06, and myself at 12:09. We were all running in the same bad conditions. Looking at the times overall, people running later in the day were at a major disadvantage. Brianne came 5th in Time Attack and 61st overall (170 entries), I came 8th in Time Attack and 70th overall. In the lower section of the mountain that was dry, from start line to the Picnic Grounds, I was 5th in Time Attack, and even to Glen Cove with some wet roads, I was 5th or 6th. It was the wet roads and hairpins higher up that slowed me down.

However, I thought the most impressive drive was by Tim Hardy, a young guy from Colorado Springs who built his BMW E30 325 coupe with a turbo M50 engine, lightweight panels, wing, and was running right behind me in the same bad conditions (he qualified just slower than I did). Tim pedaled that thing up the mountain with a time of 11:35, coming in 4th in Time Attack, and a fantastic 30th overall, while most faster competitors had a dry road.

Home
The trip home to Massachusetts was uneventful, except for running out of petrol in Illinois. I poured one gallon of VP 109 Motorsport racing gas, $13, into the Odyssey and crept to the nearest gas station.

Thanks to all the PPIHC organizers for putting on a terrific event. Thanks also to Cyrus House (BlackArtsFab.com) for being Crew Chief at Pikes Peak, and to Jimmy House for helping with everything. Also thanks to race engineer Richard Strout (LEMD.com), Charlie Gerry (Six Star Motors), Jason Russell (VEMS), Bill Lockwood (Black Glove), and to Chris, Wilhem, and all the Burlington VT crew. More thanks to Chris du Bois for Honda support, to Mitch and Alissa Williams, Dave and Allison Kern, Rick Cooke, and all my BMW CCA friends, and my New England Hillclimb Association friends! Finally thanks to Jennifer and to our families for all their support over the years.

Pikes Peak is an amazing mountain hillclimb. I will be coming back next year for sure.
- Jamie Melhuish

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Roof Cam

[HILLHO]

Great write-up. Enjoyed the ride/vid. Congratulations 2U!

[dsldubn]

great right up, thanks for sharing! Congrats, that's some great driving on such a crazy hill. I think those are some awesome results...and even more impressive with a naturally aspirated car. Congrats again.

[Robevo]

nice report!!! congrats!