Rennie Scaysbrook | August 25, 2021
Cycle News Lowside
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The Race To The Clouds
Last week, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb formally canceled the motorcycle racing portion of the Pikes Peak racing activities.
Following the death of Carlin Dunne in 2019, the race was put on hiatus for a couple of years as the race organizers conducted an “analysis for long-term viability” of the bikes being a part of the event.
When I was told of this, I immediately met it with suspicion.
Having raced the last four PPIHC events, I always got the sneaking suspicion we (the riders) were, not so much as unwelcome, but a nuisance at an event primarily run for cars.
I could see it from the driver’s point of view. The bikes always went first, thus ensuring the best weather, and you had to be within the top 20 percent of the fastest drivers to even stand a chance of making it to the summit before the clouds rolled in and the organizers progressively cut the course. Usually this first stoppage was at Devil’s Playground, then it would stop at Glen Cove, about a third of the way up the hill.
I always felt bad for the drivers. Imagine prepping a car for a full year with only the smallest hope you’d be fast enough to beat the rain and make it to the top? When you consider the financial outlay that concerned, it seemed like a waste at best.
At this point, the blame lays squarely at the feet of the race organizers. The first year I raced there in 2016, there were (from memory) 100 entries—cars and bikes—that needed to get up the hill. That’s an extraordinarily optimistic number, especially when you factor in the inevitable crashes and breakdowns and stoppages that will occur, not to mention the weather, of which they were acutely aware. It only got a little better in the proceeding years, where less cars and bikes were admitted to the start, thus enabling at least a glimmer of hope the slowest cars would get to the top.
The thing is, you’re racing up a mountain. Mountains have rain—almost every day without fail—and trying to ram that many entries up its roads is risky. At least now the cars won’t have to deal with the bikes stealing the best weather.
An easy fix would have been for the bikes to run one morning, the cars the next. But being a tourist route that brings in big money, perhaps commandeering the mountain for more than one day a year was impossible.
Mountains also have the best roads and riding my KTM 1290 Super Duke R and Aprilia Tuono V4 Factory up those inclines will remain with me as some of the very best times of my life. When that road is closed just for you and your bike, it’s an incredible feeling. Seeing the chopper whiz by just after turn one as you began your one and only run, you knew you were part of something special.
The thing is, I know the decision to stop motorcycle racing at Pikes Peak had nothing to do with the weather. I was always amazed, in the land of litigation and suing, that I was allowed to race my very high-powered motorcycle there. It’s an archaic event from a safety point of view. Rocks, dirt, no runoff, cliffs, you name it. Every single morning, for four years, we were told at the rider’s meeting “don’t crash, because if anyone gets hurt or worse, this thing stops.” Like we needed any more impetus not to throw ourselves off the side of a cliff.
We all knew the risks. Carlin Dunne knew the risks. And we all—Dunne, Carl Sorensen and Bobby Goodin included—decided they were worth taking. I very nearly met the same fate as those riders in 2016, when I went into the guard rail at Elk Park in fourth gear on the KTM. By sheer luck I got away with barely a scratch, yet I know it could have, should have, been so much worse. Yet, this didn’t stop me from wanting to take on the challenge.
That’s the thing about America’s Mountain. It presented a challenge unlike any other in motorcycle racing. No matter where you go in the world, people know the Hill Climb. It’s up there with Monaco and the Indy 500 in the pantheon of legendary motorsport events. I understand if the organizers felt their hands were forced by Carlin’s death. If they thought running the bikes was just too much of a hassle, that I don’t understand.
With that, I must say, Megan Leatham, the Executive Director of the race, is a wonderful woman. She runs the event with crack-the-whip passion, and I’m pleased to have ridden the event during her tenure. It’s a shame bikes will never race there again.
I’ll leave you with a memory I have of my time at Pikes Peak. Not crashing, or winning, or surviving.
During the second day of practice in 2019, I went second behind Carlin. The sun had barely risen, and my good mate Chris Fillmore was next, just behind me. With Chris arriving at Devil’s Playground, it was just the three of us, looking out over the breathtaking early morning horizon across Colorado, some 12,000 or so feet up.
The silence was soon broken by a screaming, tortured motor, the sound reverberating off the cliff walls. Full revs, brake, full revs, brake. Soon, the sound was recognized as Lucy Glockner and her fire-breathing BMW HP Race. The German is most likely the fastest female big-bike rider on the planet.
When Lucy crossed the line, Carlin looked at me with a mix of shock and sheer admiration. I don’t remember the words he spoke to me, but it was something along the lines of “daaamn!” with a raised eyebrow to boot. This lady was the real deal, and Carlin knew it.
Four days later, barely four miles from where we stood, the Mountain claimed Carlin for itself.
I’m thankful to have raced America’s Mountain. Thankful it spared me in 2016, thankful it allowed me to share the podium with Chris Fillmore in 2017, and I’m thankful for those very, very early mornings with a special group of people who knew the dangers, knew the risks, but still chose to live them and thus, live life, quite literally on the edge.CN