Pikes Peak Big Rig

Posted on DR: Pikes Peak Big Rig http://bit.ly/TSBTX

Mike was at Pikes Peak last year and the year before, but unfortunately due to the way the entry is divided for practice mornings I never got to see him run, or get to chat with him. He's a good friend of my team mate - Paul Dallenbach - and is, by all accounts from those who know him, a great guy. I think he does a lot of truck stunt driving and accident testing/recreations (there's one of his accident tests on youtube), so I suspect running the Peak is a breeze by comparison!

What I wasn't prepared for is the SIZE of that truck, especially when you see it in the context of the other cars and bikes that compete at the Peak. Much of the course is actually pretty wide - especially the dirt sections - so he's got more room to throw it around than you'd think, but on the steep middle section, which is all paved, endless hairpins and some of the steepest drops, it must be a real fairground ride, especially from such a high driving position.

I drove Steve Parrish's Merc racing truck many years ago at Hockenheim and it was huge fun in every sense of the word. You have to get used to the momentum and the remote feel of the air brakes, but it's actually amazingly responsive and pretty delicate to drive. It slid, but in a controlled way and the power/torque is like nothing you've ever experienced. I think it was that motor, or an evolution of it, that Mike runs in his Freightliner rig. If so it must flatten those gradients like a steam roller.

While he has many friends at Pikes Peak, they all think he's as big a madman as you do, which is pretty funny when you think how crazy the whole event is anyway. Still, the world needs events that cater for and actively encourage such extreme machines and eccentric drivers. Long live Pikes Peak, that's what I say.

That's nuts!!

One of those things where your eyes see it, so it must be true......but it just doesn't compute. If he crashed that thing on top of the mountain you would see it on the richter scale.

Interested to hear Richard's thoughts given he has driven there.