It was forty years ago that this Canadian started his racing career on the dirt tracks of Eastern Canada, and this year he’s celebrating on his way to the top.
There’s uniqueness in being the only Canadian motorcycle racer at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC). I tried to keep this in mind as I headed out from Moncton, N.B., for the long 4,100 km drive to Colorado Springs, Colorado. As this was my third year in a row making the trek, the itinerary was well sorted: 1,000 km per day for four days. As a privateer, there’s no glamour in the trip. Each night I bed down in the back of the same Ford F-150 crew cab that’s pulling my 7 x 14-foot enclosed trailer, packed to the brim with race bike and endless totes of spare parts, tools, equipment, gear and the like.
Founded in 1916 by Spencer Penrose, the Pikes Peak National Hill Climb, and the road he built to accommodate it, has presented a unique challenge to generations of racers. The Pikes Peak toll road winds its way up the length of the course 19.98 km with 156 turns to the 4,300-metre summit, providing an incredible drive and views that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Because of this popularity, the road is closed for only one day per year – race day. That means all testing, practice and qualifying is scheduled between sun-up and 8:30 a.m., when the road opens. Conditions on the mountain course are what could reservedly be called “variable,” especially hazardous for vehicles with only two wheels; race morning in 2016 saw snowplows scraping thick sheets of ice off the top of the track.
A Sparse Racing Career
Our one opportunity for a shakedown came in May at the first round of the Society of Atlantic Roadracing League series at Atlantic Motorsport Park in Shubenacadie, N.S. It should be said that I’m by no means a road racer, having only dabbled in it over the years. Visits to Shubie have been few and far between, with races in 1984, 1993, 2005 and 2016, though my return in 2017 broke the long-standing tradition of one visit per decade.
I came away from the weekend taking first place in the Pro Twins, first place in the Formula 46 class and third place in the Pro Superbike. More importantly, we had a good baseline as we began the trek to Colorado and America’s second-oldest motorsports race.
Our arrival in Colorado Springs for the test weekend on June 10 and 11 was greeted with 70 km/h winds, gusting to 95 at the peak, which understandably had officials anxious, resulting in a group test run for safety. Even at that reserved pace, we were being pushed around on the road, with the wind most noticeably, and uncomfortably, doing its best to suck the bike off the side of the mountain.
America doesn’t have the stomach for race fatalities as in the road-racing cultures of Ireland and the Isle of Man, and this fact very nearly ended the event for motorcyclists. The top section has not been kind to motorcycles over the past few years with fatalities in 2014 and 2015. After Carl Sorensen slid off the high-speed 19-Mile corner and plunged to his death in a practice run in 2015, it was said that in the days after the race, the PPIHC administration had made a decision to cancel future motorcycle participation in the event. Thankfully, that ruling was not made official.
Tight Field
This year’s competition was expected to be very tough. Returning for his seventh year was last year’s King of the Hill, Bruno Langlois from France on a specially prepared 2017 Z900, bristling with advanced race parts and electronics. Also back was Rennie Scaysbrook on a new KTM factory-backed Super Duke 1290R, looking equally race-prepped. He had been well on pace last year to win the overall, but entered the hairpin at Elk Park with too much steam and put himself into the guardrail. The biggest threat, though, was rookie Chris Fillmore from L.A., also on a KTM factory-backed Super Duke 1290R. At 30 years old, Fillmore has spent most of his last 15 years as a KTM-backed pro AMA Supermoto and Superbike racer. I first met him in 2006, when we were racing a national Supermoto event in downtown Toronto. It’s a huge task to arrive at Pikes Peak for the first time and compete for a win, but Fillmore is not your average rookie.
Testing early in the morning always has its challenges, the first of which is getting up at 2 a.m. to be on the hill at 3 a.m. But being early has its rewards in getting first choice of pit area – the closer to the starting line, the easier it makes getting situated for each practice run. Both days we were first in line to take advantage of the valuable lessons learned in years past.
This year, my crew for the test weekend was veteran Canadian road racer and Harley-Davidson XR1200 series front-runner Blaise Fougere from Halifax. With time at a premium, we’re always under the gun to learn quickly and make smart adjustments, meaning I rely heavily on Fougere and his experience as a national-level road racer to move us in the right direction.
All Together
The second day’s testing took place on the bottom of the circuit, with its fast and flowing corners favouring the guys with a road-race background. The first series of corners is the most dangerous, with speeds high and tire temperatures at their lowest. The catch here is that the harder you charge out of the gate, the more temperature the tire builds and can hold onto for the cold climb to the top. By the third session, we were ready to lay down a fast time, but four corners into our run, at full throttle and maximum lean angle on a 160-plus km/h sweeping right-hander, my engine abruptly shut down. The suddenness of it locked the rear tire and sent the big twin into a skid toward the guardrail on the outside of the turn. I gathered it up just as I went over the white line, within a metre of disaster. Coasting to a roadside stop, I tried to digest what had just happened. I turned the key off then on, and it fired up immediately. The course was promptly red flagged, but not in time to stop the next bike, Fillmore, who seconds later flew by at a race pace just metres away.
I unceremoniously rolled back down the course to the pits, the bike cutting out twice more along the way, suggesting a fuelling or electrical problem. We were done for the day.
Gremlins
I stayed in Colorado Springs for the week trying to solve our mechanical problems. Fougere flew back to Halifax for the week, to return next Sunday for the “Peak Week” schedule of events.
I was offered a fuel pump from the KTM factory team as a possible solution. The difficulty was, there was no place to test the bike during the week. I discovered that the following Saturday, there was a track day down at Pueblo Motorsport Park, an hour south of Colorado Springs, so I registered for that. Unfortunately, the fuel pump hadn’t fixed the issue, as the problem once again reared its head on my first out-lap.
After some phone calls and pondering of the situation, I felt the issue must be with the aftermarket tuning electronics I’d installed on the bike to help with fuel mapping at race elevations. I spent the remainder of the day in the desert heat ripping off all of the new electronics and returning it to stock, only to miss the last practice session.
I knew I couldn’t afford to miss any more practice runs on the mountain, so, at the suggestion of some well-informed locals, I rolled the KTM out of the trailer at the crack of dawn the following morning next to an abandoned warehouse in nowhere Colorado, surrounded by an expanse of flat desert, on an arrow-straight road that went on forever. Of course, being on public roads, in a foreign country, aboard an un-plated competition motorcycle with no insurance, carries with it a certain gravity, which I weighed with great care against the toils of an entire year. On this occasion, fortune favoured the bold, and my hunch about the wiring as the Super Duke was back on song, albeit down horsepower and a quick shifter in this stock form.
Main Event
On Tuesday morning, I decided to put all the problems of the past week behind me and come out swinging on the middle-section runs. I led the field with the fastest time on each of the first three runs of the day, with only one minor hiccup. Coming into the final turn of my third run, I reached for the front brake and the lever went straight to the bar – no brakes at all! I locked the rear brakes and dirt-tracked it through the corner in a panic. Safely back in the pits, we bled a large amount of air out of the brakes and surmised it had gotten in there from the violent headshake the bike had been through the previous weekend when the engine shut down.
The remaining two runs of the day were not comfortable ones. This mountain is no place to be without brakes unexpectedly. I kept one finger on the lever for most of the runs, pulled in just enough to feel there was brake pressure there. Surprisingly, though, I ran faster times, but was eventually shuffled back to fourth fastest once again thanks to improving times from the factory-backed guys.
Fingers Crossed
While taking care of the brake issue, we also decided to try reinstalling the electronics I’d removed when trackside in the desert. Despite the risks, it would give us the fuel injection map tuned specifically for the race elevations, and it also meant the quick shifter I’d done without all morning would be back on line and saving me precious fractions of a second with each use. Our hope was that loose connections and not the units themselves caused the stalling issues.
The next day, we were back on the top section of the mountain and spent much of the day working with the people at Pirelli to get the most out of the tires. We made headway, but it was difficult to attack the course at 100 per cent without feeling safe entering and exiting every corner. I kept one finger pulling the brake lever all day, hoping for the best.
Friday, June 30, was qualifying day, with the best time of the day determining the race order, from slowest to fastest. On the first run of the day, thick fog covered the mountain from Picnic Grounds to Glen Cove. Visibility in some areas was nil, and I had to look down and follow the yellow lines to stay on course. I just backed out of the throttle and completed the run. After I returned to the pits, the session was suspended; when the fog didn’t lift, the morning session was cancelled. The one run we’d completed was used for our qualifying times and race order. The riders who went up first got the clearest run and best times. I think some gambled, perhaps knowing this may be the only run. In the end, I was seventh fastest and my starting position was 23rd for Sunday – race day. Just another wacky situation that makes up a Pikes Peak experience!
My girlfriend, Melanie, flew in for race day and some good ol’ boys from home made the trek down as well. The familiar faces and camaraderie were a welcome addition to an otherwise tense couple of weeks. We were all up and driving to the mountain by 1 a.m. that Sunday. Once on site, we readied the KTM, making final adjustments, and I went through course videos, pictures and notes, and triple-checking everything. All prayers were answered, as it was a glorious clear and sunny morning on the mountain. The road temperatures were coming up steadily and ensured good grip for our run. That was a huge relief – a dry mountain course is dangerous; a wet mountain course is deadly.
The Intensity of Pikes Peak
The mood on pit lane was positive and jovial, but tensions clearly rose in the moments leading up to the start. The atmosphere was much like an X Games, with riders chatting, backslapping and hugging, exchanging “See you at the top” vows.
I felt ready and calm. Every day for a year I worked on something to get to this point. It was time to put aside the week’s issues and enjoy my turn on the mountain.
We got the signal to go, and the tire warmers were whipped off and the KTM was fired up. I rolled down to the start and took the starting position. At Pikes it’s a flying start. With the wave of a green flag I roared off the line and was in third gear wide open around the first tight left-hand corner and through the start timing gate.
I pushed through the lower section harder than I’d ever dared before, the extra speed causing me to miss a few braking points. The momentum continued to build until I drifted onto the yellow lines coming around Tin Barn and lost the front end for a moment.
With renewed focus, I barrelled through Glen Cove and into Section 3. The climb through the Cove really shows what you’re made of as you keep the throttle pinned, banging up the quick shifter from first through fifth while double-apexing a long blind right-hander around the mountainside – this is the essence of Pikes Peak. It only intensifies when the Elk Park hairpin appears and you need to throw out the anchor while still turning. Experienced racers Don Canet and Rennie Scaysbrook both made friends with the guardrail there. It’s one of the few places a guardrail is your friend, or at least friendlier than the endless cliff behind it.
Over the Top
Section 4 takes you over the top of the mountain, from Devil’s Playground to the Summit. It’s called Devil’s Playground for the spectacle caused by the way lightning dances and bounces about the area from rock to rock during alpine electrical storms. Up here, the road is colder and the drops are much longer. Road conditions are also at their worst, the surface having to endure the harsh and ever-changing climate at these altitudes. Each turn requires a little more care to avoid bumps and settle the bike while still trying to fight for every second on the clock. The final left-hand corner to the Summit finish line is no place to relax. It’s a tricky camber with rough and broken pavement. I raced for every fraction of a second through it and crossed the finish line in full tuck, then carefully decelerating, thinking of Texan Bobby Goodin, who was killed here in 2014, having lost control of his bike at the finish line.
I slowly rolled across the dirt parking lot to the race director’s position, where I received a big handshake and my race time of 10:28. Truthfully, I was disappointed for a moment. I’d beaten last year’s time by eight seconds, which was a significant improvement. However, the run was nearly flawless and had just felt so much faster. But the clock doesn’t lie, and the mountain has no favourites. I stood on the edge at 4,300 metres, watched the clouds roll by, counted my blessings and sunk a beer. Life goes on.
It had been a full year of painstaking preparation. As a 53-year-old privateer and part-time rider from Irishtown, New Brunswick, I was incredibly proud of the team and our accomplishments – and what turned out to be a fourth-place finish in class. Not bad for a retired accountant.
