The 100 year old event – Pikes Peak Hill Climb, also known as The Race to the Clouds – takes place every year in Colorado where the race reaches 14,110 ft (4,300 m). The track measure 12.42 mile run and cars climb 4,720 feet, and serves as a proving ground for car makers to test the speed and agility of their new vehicles.
This year’s winner was the Volkswagen ID R Pikes Peak, an electric vehicle built specifically for the race. The car driven by Romain Dumas finished the course at over 90 miles per hour in just under eight minutes. The official time for Volkswagen’s ID R Pikes Peak was 7:57.148, beating the prior EV record of 8:57.118 set by Rhys Millen in an e0 PP100 in 2016, as well as the overall record of 8:13.878 set in 2013 by Sébastien Loeb in a Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak.
The VW EV has 680 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque. A 43-kWh battery feeds juice to the all-wheel drive monster, with an electric motor on each axle that can propel it to 62 mph in 2.25 seconds. Total weight on this bad boy is less than 2,425 pounds, including the driver. BMW cars were represented in the race by an E30 M3 piloted by Tim Hardy, a Colorado Springs-native, who bought a 1988 BMW E30 on Craigslist for $450. The M3 EV finished 11th with a time of 9:59.709.
