With four days to go until this year's event, we thought we'd reminisce about one of the craziest things to compete in the Pikes Peak hill climb.
It may weigh over 4,500kg, but Mike Ryan's Pikes Peak Freightliner is a thing of beauty. Such twisted beauty. Sure, I mean, why compete cliffside in an agile Evo when you can conquer in a top-heavy truck?
It mightn't be rational, but c'mon, neither is racing up a hill.
While a lot of modern Pikes Peak entries are in highly accurate, hermetically sealed, space age UFOs, Mike Ryan's truck shrugged off lap records with brute force and clouds of smoke. Whumph!
Mike saw more than a few misfortunes over the years, but it's still an interesting thing to look back on and admire.
It was pretty spectacular to watch Mike handle the 1790kw and a gargantuan 5423Nm of torque (about the same as 27 Mazda3s) around the twisting 20km course. But despite his dedication and record-breaking skills, he and his team will not compete in this year's climb. Shame.
Would you be able to wrangle more than 5,000Nm? Tell us about it in the comments below.
