News update! It looks like it's up to 190 drivers for this years event. Here's a new update from the PPIHC:
Colorado Springs----------Drivers and racers from ten nations, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, New Zealand, Sweden, Mexico, Australia, Great Britain and the USA, will challenge the terrain and the altitude during the world’s most famous hill climb- the 89th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, on Sunday, June 26.
It all began in 1916 and this one will be special.
A field of 190 drivers and racers is set for the thrills and unexpected twists and turns in America’s second oldest motor sports race at 9:00 a.m. The race is staged on a 12.42 mile course with 156 turns. It begins at 9,390 feet and ends at the famous mountain’s 14,110-foot summit above Colorado Springs.
It’s the most spectacular and unusual event on a loaded summer calendar of sports events in Colorado Springs, the home of the United States Olympic Committee and almost 50 major sports organizations, ranging from archery to wrestling.
Journalists and broadcasters have been accredited from Romania, Great Britain, Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand and the United States to cover the race this year.
It begins on Friday, June 24, in downtown Colorado Springs with the race Fan Fest, with some 35,000 fans on hand from 5:00-10:00 p.m. The free admission evening includes a chance to see the autos and motorcycles, along with their drivers and racers, enjoy live music, a chili cook-off, motorcycle jumpers, even the Denver Bronco cheerleaders.
Hollywood film star Paul Walker (Fast And Furious), will drive the Official Pace Car, a Porsche Boxter Spyder from the start line on Race Day, with Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach buckled in the passenger seat.
Much attention will be focused on the autos in the Unlimited Division, where five-time champion Nobuhiro Tajima of Japan returns in another crack at the Peak’s elusive ten minute barrier. Tajima set the record of 10:01.408 in 2007.
The defending King of the Mountain will take the wheel of his 910hp Suzuki SX4 Hill Climb Special again, but he faces the toughest competition he has had in the storied race, including Rhys Millen, Paul Dallenbach, Dave Carapetyan and France’s Jean-Philippe Dayraut. (British RallyCross champion Mark Rennison withdrew on June 8.)
Dacia will enter the Unlimited field with a purpose-built 850hp prototype, the Duster 'No Limit', driven by three-time Trophée Andros champion Dayraut.
Dallenbach’s PVA—03 features turbo charging, tuning and engineering expertise, boosting the formally normal-breathing engine’s power output from 745 hp & 650 lb-ft to a stunning 1307 hp & 1206 lb-ft.
Rhys Millen will return to the mountain for the 19th time and another attempt to crack the storied ten-minute barrier in the loaded division after finishing third last year. He’ll be behind the wheel again of his upgraded, improved, 750hp 2011 Hyundai Genesis RMR PM580.
Carapetyan, who won the Pikes Peak Open class three times in a row, will make his debut in the Unlimited field driving a 2011 Rally Ready Mitsubishi Evolution 959, especially constructed this spring to challenge the mountain.
