If the weather is nice, records are going to be broken left and right. The Ducati riders did awesome last year, expectations are high for them again this year. Greg Tracy and Carlin Dunne are both coming back
, Ducati has a great team and they should be very competitive.
I can't say enough about the racers, Pikes Peak is just different. I cannot think of anything like it anywhere else. Keep in mind this is a public highway that is shut down most of the year due to weather. Practice is only possible when closed to the public, which does not happen often. Even if you park at the start of the race, you will spend the day at an altitude of over 9,000 feet. This alone is difficult for racers and vehicles. Then racing to over 14,000 feet, with cliffs on the side that made me nervous while driving the very low speed limit in my all wheel drive car. It took me much more than 10 minutes to cover the race route and I did not mind. Many visitors cannot take the altitude. As an added bonus, this year Walter Rohrl is bringing back the Audi for another run
.
Greg Tracy tells the funny/not-so-funny joke about the corner where if go off you will starve to death before you hit the bottom. While it may not be true, there is very little room for error in this race. Pikes Peak is not a racetrack, its a mountain. I love racing (many different kinds), but racing Pikes Peak has never crossed my mind, and I lived there for six years. The riders and drivers tackling Pikes Peak have skills mere mortals rarely possess, no doubt about it. They have to. There are places on Pikes Peak where the road meets essentially nothing, there is no shoulder, no run-off. It takes more than talent at Pikes Peak to win. Inches from death in the pursuit of racing; balls.
