Live from the Mountain: Peak Week Day 1 and 2

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Article and Photos by Ryan Schnell

Follow this blog everyday this week as my team competes in the 89th running of the legendary Pikes Peak International Hill Climb driving a Peak Performance sponsored Subaru WRX. This is my fourth time co-driving at Pikes Peak and I’ll do my best to give you the reader an inside glimpse of racing in one of the craziest events in all of motorsports.

We have spent the last 9 months planning, building, organizing, signing sponsors and working tirelessly towards being as prepared as possible for this week. It’s finally here – Peak week. Once a year racers from all walks of life and from all over the globe descend upon Colorado Springs, Colorado to challenge all 156 corners and 14,110 ft or rarified air. A week that gives a racer insanely high ups and downs in a matter of seconds. This is Pikes Peak, America’s most legendary mountain and home to one of the most historic motorsport events in the world.

Racing at Pikes Peak always tends to start off nice and easy at the beginning of the week. This year proved to be no different for me and my team as we made it through registration and technical inspection without a hitch. We got the car inspected, weighed and judged to the legality of its class. We got everything prepped for the early morning practice and got to bed as early as possible.

The 2:45 AM wake up call is always brutal, but I always have a sense of excitement of what I am about to do. Yes, your extremely tired, but your adrenaline kicks in as you think about hearing sounds of race cars blasting up Pikes Peak moments after sunrise. We arrived at the middle section of the mountain to practice with our assigned group. Practice is split up in three different sections of road with different car/bike/quad divisions in each section. Half asleep at the drivers meeting I look to my left and see Rod Millen standing next to me – one of my Pikes Peak hero’s and someone I have watched race on Pikes Peak since I was 12 years old. We strapped in for the first run and anxiously awaited the green flag. Run by run we clicked off successful attempts and improved our confidence in the car and developed better communication between driver and co-driver. At the finish of each run all the drivers get out of their cars and do a little bench racing, renew friendships and make some new ones. The group of drivers at the Peak this year is one of the best in year’s and it’s an honor to be racing alongside them. We made a total of 3 practice runs on our fourth run everything went wrong. We came around the last hairpin in the famous “W’s” section and blasted out of first and second gear. Third gear didn’t go so well as we heard a huge bang after attempting a 2-3 upshift. The car immediately lost drive and we came to a stop. Stranded on the side of Pikes Peak I started thinking about how difficult this week was now going to get. Stay tuned for the next blog detailing how our team would scramble like crazy to replace the transmission and get the car back on the mountain….