some images for you.

We WON!!!!!!!!

1St in Class, and with the new qualifying record! thanks to Dave (aka Merlin) Hinde, and my other special half, and navigator, Cath.

We will post a full report later, this image is from the newspaper here in Colorado!

Photos by Kevin Hahn Photography.

Rest day is almost over...

Being a rest day, today we borrowed a lift and rotated the tyres, changed the oil, bled the brakes, bled the clutch, and did a checkover.

During the morning we came across many images of our car from AutoBlog, and a few other sites, and gathered them up for you to see some fantastic shots.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we race. We have to be up by 3:00am, and be at the hill around 3;30, we are scheduled to be on the hill competing by 10:30-ishy.

They hope to have us all run by 1pm, including over 200 motorcycles. Hopefully all will be safe, and well.

We are very happy with how it all has gone so far, how could we not! We set the new record for qualifying, but we have a target painted on our backs, and there are many aiming at it, not only in our classes, but also the 'open' class of cars of which we beat all but one.

Our focus now is slightly different, we had a plan to always run 70% speed but 100% accuracy, and I really hope my mindset stays with that, it will assist us in finding the rythmn early. Getting to the top is more important than winning for us now.

The record we set will stay for the year, as they pave the last half right after the end of this years event, next year it will tumble dramatically.

May all be well in your world, Chase your dreams, cherish the friends you have. Life is short, you only get one shot at it, and remember, you miss 100% of the shots you dont take!

Day 3 of Practice and Qualifying!

Day 3 was done and run today, the result was FASTEST in class, and a new Qualifying record!! Sweet. More later. Here's some images.

Day 2 Practice is done!

Today we were at the very top of the hills, practicing on the last 3- 3.5 miles. Mostly very loose gravel, but very very fast! This is where we have to compromise with our lines, and hope there will be a good dusting on the race line on race day. The Kumhos are holding up, even on the gravel sections, at times, with the right dusting some of the gravel road has as much grip as tarmac. We shall see.

The yellow Mini is an all girl team that are fun to be around. They're giving it a shot, and a good one as well. Rhys stopped half way through the practice stage with a problem, on the previous run his guys were trying to source a 'glitch' via data log, but I guess they didnt find it.

We also had a casualty today, the white ex-prodrive Sti (GC8) rolled on one of the fast down hill sections into a hairpin. Car looks worse than it is, but will be an easy fix! We've offered to go around and assist with hammers, which I think we will have to do. He is in our class, but we need the competition, if for nothing else, to justify us being here.

The speeds on the gravel were very fast! I never look at my speedo, EVER! But Merlin (Dave Hinde our Ecu guy) asked what speed we were pulling, now I hate speed so I never look at what the speedo is saying, but this time I decided to sneak a peak at speed, and it confirmed why I never want to look. Going around a left hander, sliding, setting the car up for the exit, I run down the next hill full throttle upshifting, the car is squirrily and moving around a fair bit on the Kumho V710s, I take a peak as I reach the very point I need to brake it the speedo is past 120mph (200kph+) I then have to slow the car down for a fast but treacherous right hander which I swing the car through with a small flick.

Then on the way back I found we were all going quite rapid back to the start to do another (of 4 total) timed run, 3 of us travelling together hitting 100mph switching between the tarmac and gravel.

Oh, almost forgot, I was standing there after the drivers meeting, which took place at 5am, keeping Cath warm, and chatting to the BMW boys, when this hooded figure walks up and walks into me, I knew someone was playing games and pulled the hood off to reveal my old buddy Andrew Comrie-Picard (ACP to the world), it was a great surprise seeing him again, and tonite we shall catch up on lots of missed drinks. Tomorrow's Blog entry will n doubt be all about how I should stop drinking and how Im having trouble focusing because I'll be hung over and that I promise to never drink again.

Andrew runs and evo 8 as well, but highly modded with carbon, well, everything. He's a great competitor too, although he's not in our class. It's going to be fun having him around.

I love Pikes Peak, I can see now why it is such a drug for a lot of people!

Some vids of today!

Images from Practice day 1

One thing I can tell you is the Media is very thick on the ground at all Practice points. So much so they actually stand on the road with their video camera, even on the apexes, but it's a little hard to say 'apex off camera man', it wont be good if he isnt there the next run.

As you can imagine being up the top of this huge mountain before sunrise gives an awesome view of the sun arriving for the day! The air is fresh and chilly, the head spins come and go when you get out of the car for a walk.

Videos will be loaded later today, all of which were taken by Cat's mom, Michelle, who has been terrific to have around. Check out the cute navigator in the bottom pic!

The shot third from the bottom is Rhys Millen's animal! This car will be taking the record! My fav shot is the first one (what, not the one with my car in it??) with the sunrise over the eastern US seaboard, and the trucks and guys standing on the edge of the road. 'Majestic' comes to mind.

Till next time

Day two in the bag!

Well we got up at 2;30 am to be at the mountain by 3:30 am to be in position for our first practice. We had the middle section today, tomorrow we are on the very gravelly top, and Friday we will be running/practicing on the bottom. This works out very well for us as they use the bottom section for qualifying, so those that had it today, ie; all the bikes, quads etc, were in fact qualifying. We wont have to worry about that for another couple of days.

We did 6 test runs and learnt a lot, we saw no need to do anymore as it just wears on the clutch and tyres.

We also were given a test set of Elig competition brake pads, and I have to say, these were good, flying up to the first hairpin, flat in 4th gear, my notes say brake at the sign, but flying up to it foot down in 4th, 3000 foot drop off the side I thought 'am I crazy, that's too close to the turn', but I gave it a shot and whammo'd the brake pedal and the car stopped 20 feet short of the corner. Great pads!!

The evo got it's new tyres mounted yesteday, so we were bedding the tyres in and heat cycling them, but they came through on their first run.

Right now we really need a nap, not just because of the early start, but because we both didnt sleep last night, and we get to do it all again tomorrow. Umm, I mean tonite, well, you know what I mean.

On a sad note, Dave Kern blew his engine in his evo, it was an AMS special stroker, and it wouldve been a true powerhouse, but it seems the timing belt broke, so Dave has taken it back to his house and we've offered to help in any way. We hope it gets back together real quick.


Till tomorrows update!

Day 1 Done and dusted!

Scrutineering done, Drivers briefing done, Rookie briefing done. Fuel canisters filled, evo filled, alignment (basic) done, Kumho tyres mounted and balanced and done.

Tomorrow we get up at 2:30 am and head off for first practice. Let me show you some of the cars that ran through tech today. Enjoy these pictures, and check out these evos that are running. And the eclectic joy of the vintage cars, also.