In its second year contesting the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, the Rally xD team successfully reached the top (a breathtaking 14,110 feet in elevation) for 2013! They placed a 12:39 ET, making them the fastest front-wheel drive vehicle for this event!
Crew Chief Philip Chase reported that conditions changed constantly, from snow, wind, hail, and whatever the gods of racing can throw at them. Traction would prove to be difficult, especially as the xD’s turbocharger started to build full-boost. Wheel slip was nearly unavoidable.
In a post I made last year, I mentioned a little on how hard that actually is for both man and machine. You not only have to battle uphill (or upmountain, if that makes more sense), but the higher up you go, the thinner the oxygen supply in the air is, making it difficult for the driver and car to breathe as if it were at sea level. At least the Rally xD relies on some turbocharged assistance to get the most oxygen into the engine. Can’t say the same for driver Andrew Comrie-Picard, unless he was hooked up to some oxygen tank. Even then, power output is cut drastically by the time they cross the 10,000 ft mark. Water and oil temperatures also suffer the higher up you travel, and if you’re hard on the brakes, the boiling temperature will also drop. So many things to factor in that can go wrong while driving.
Needless to say, the team didn’t have it easy. And this xD being their sole chariot for racing duties during the 2013 Rally America season, they’d have a lot to lose if this car found itself over the cliff. But, we’re talking about seasoned rally veterans. They know what they’re doing. Again, the xD saw the finish line under its own power. Some teams weren’t so lucky. The Love Fab NSX, for example, crashed during practice and went up in flames cutting their weekend short. Mechanical failures are to be expected to varying degrees. Drivers are pushed to their very limits. We’re just glad to see that nothing major went wrong for the xD crew.
It goes without saying that the highlight of the event was seeing Red Bull and their Peugeot 208 T16 with 875bhp and all-wheel drive, commandeered by WRC veteran Sebastien Loeb, break the record by a large margin. How about 8m:13.878sec to the top?! Last year’s record of 9:46 by Rhys Millen in his Hyundai Tiburon was still quite an achievement considering that was the first year of an all-paved course, and in rear-wheel drive only. To his acknowledgement, Rhys bested his own record with a 9:02.192 in his Hyundai PM580T.
Oh, and our good friends at Evasive Motorsports broke the 10 minute barrier (10:59) in their Time Attack Scion FR-S! Way to go, guys!
The 2013 event also saw a return of the Electric Car class. Say what you want about it, but a race car’s a race car no matter how it sounds. We should truly embrace this form of racing technology.
All in all, a great event. New records have been set, and we should all look forward to another record-smashing year in 2014!