(people yelling)
- One of the toughest hill climbs in the world.
(engine revving)
I mean, it's pretty much like the toughest one,
(engine revving)
but there are others out there,
but they're not as public and people just
don't know it as much as Pikes Peak,
which is fair, but, I mean, after all,
when you talk about a hill climb
you're talking about Pikes Peak.
The Race to the Clouds, AKA PPIHC,
AKA Pikes Peak International Hill Climb
was founded in 1916 and promoted by Spenser Penrose,
a Teddy Roosevelt-looking fellow
who barely scooted by in Harvard Graduate School.
Instead of being like his other six siblings
of doctors and politicians, Spencer wanted
to play real life Oregon Trail
and head west to start making his own businesses.
Spencer would go in and out of businesses
until finally hitting it big in the mining community
because before that he wasn't really doing that hot.
He partnered with a couple other people
and formed the Utah Copper Company in 1903.
It's goal was to get 99 mining,
beat all other competitors out there
and make a (bleep) ton of money.
Nobody's gonna get that reference anymore.
Needless to say, Spencer became loaded.
He returned to Colorado, where he ended up
meeting the love of his life: Julie Villiers Lewis McMillan,
a lady who grounded the otherwise ambitious bachelor.
During their honeymoon in Europe,
Spencer was infatuated with the architecture
and once they actually returned to Colorado,
the fact that he had a boatload of cash,
and in fact a pretty big imagination,
he began to make his own hotel that would
rival those found in Europe, dubbed the Broadmoor.
(coughing)
After all, I mean, Spencer had pretty much
all the money he could possibly want,
and as an entrepreneur, he pretty much
just did whatever the (bleep) he wanted.
While he was busy having a limb-measuring contest
with another continent, there was another
itsy-bitsy project he was doing on the side:
building a 14,110-foot road at the summit of Pikes Peak.
No big deal.
Coming in at just short of the same price
of a new Aston Martin Vanquish,
which is $283,000, the road was completed
without much fuss in 1918.
Taking the narrow carriage road
and turning it into a proper access road,
what else would you do with a brand new road?
It doesn't matter if it's 1916, 1918, or 2019.
When you see a new road, you're going out there
to do hoodrat (bleep) with your friends.
That's just how it is, and it hasn't changed,
especially when you consider in the early Twentieth Century
they literally did just that.
Pikes Peak saw its first successful race climb
in 1918 by a man named Rea Lentz.
I'd make a dad joke here, but he's still in my life,
so all we've got is the fact that he won
the first Pikes Peak hill climb
and then he disappeared from the record books.
The event saw everyone from no-name racers
to professional enthusiasts make that climb.
Names like Otto Loesche, Louis Unser,
Glen Scultz and others that I don't know how to pronounce
would take home trophies in the event's infancy.
The annual event grew to new heights
when the Sports Car Club of America
became involved in 1983 with a sponsorship
and a (bleep) boatload of participants.
From 1953 to 1962, the records were broken
year over year by a man named Bobby Unser,
the younger brother of Louis Unser.
Oh, you don't know Bobby?
Read a book.
Sorry, that was mean.
Bobby was a man that lived around automobiles.
He's one of the 10 drivers to win
the Indianapolis 500 multiple times,
and even participated in Formula One for a short while.
Over years the European automotive crowd
caught wind of this small American event
and began making the trip in the mid-1980s
to also play race car.
The event was once a small rag-tag group of car guys
turned into an actual proper event.
Now, when we said the road was completed
back in the 1900s, it was kind of a lie.
I mean, it was kind of lie in current-day
to say that the Toyota Supra wasn't, you know,
on the same platform as the BMW.
It was kind of a lie to say that the NSX
was gonna be like an entry-level sports car.
It was kind of a lie to say that, you know.
There are some things that people do in life
that sometimes they regret.
And when I said that the hill climb
was actually a full-on road that had asphalt on it
I was lying, except I never said asphalt.
You played yourself.
Back in 1916, there really wasn't much
like, you know, asphalt or proper road materials
to really actually deem it a road.
In fact, the road was pretty much entirely
made up of dirt until the 1950s
when the first six miles of the highway
were paved and about a mile below the start line.
In 1998 a group by the name of the Sierra Club,
the largest environmental organization in the nation
declared that the gravel from this road
caused serious contamination.
It violated the Clean Water Act.
They sued.
The city of Colorado Springs was like,
okay, yeah, I get it.
Probably not the best thing to put in water,
but I don't think you can blame us
for your insecurities and fact that you really enjoy
getting mad about water being dirty.
They argued back, but they lost.
Completely independent of the PPIHC,
or the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Organization,
this agreement was reached, because well, they lost.
Anyway, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb
actually rents this road each year
and wasn't involved in the decision, regardless.
In fact, they weren't even in favor
of paving the road in the first place.
From 2002 to 2012, the course slowly became paved,
which changed the style of this racing event forever.
Racing involvement spike to 170 racers in 2012
after paving concluded and only grew from there.
Since the conception, Pikes Peak grew back
into motorcycles, additional classes, electric vehicles,
pretty much anything with two or four wheels.
In fact, 2018 saw the trophy go to a man named
(stuttering and laughing)
In fact, 2018 saw the trophy go home
to Romain Dumas in his Volkswagon I.D. R,
braking the iconic eight minute barrier for the first time.
From 1916 to this day, the 12.42-mile race
with 156 turns has seen some incredible
vehicles and drivers and crashes
and some other not really happy stuff.
So whether you're like a spectator,
racer or sponsor, Pikes Peak still holds
one of the nation's purest forms
of automotive racing to this day, period.
Done.
Right.
Drop a comment on what you'd like us to talk about next.
I mean, we kind of need your help anyway.
And if you haven't subscribed, do that, too.
I'd really like to eat something else other besides ramen.
If you're looking for wheels, tires, or suspension,
hit us up, fitmentindustries.com.
You know the drill.
I'm Alex, we'll see you later.
Kansei Wheel giveaway if it's March.
You wanna win a free set of wheels,
so pick up a T-shirt.
I'm Alex, that's Banker.
We'll see you later.
Just kidding, that's not Banker.
Peace.