Pikes Peak Is A Cruel, Unforgiving Mountain That Refuses To Play Favorites

The race doesn’t stop for one team’s celebration, though, even if it’s a new record. Other drivers still need their shot, and once you’re at the top, that’s where you stay until everyone comes down together. A Honda Civic TCR had already headed up the mountain behind Yoshihara, followed by a Porsche 911, and after that, a 2014 Volkswagen Golf. British racer Jim Morris’s Volkswagen Golf, actually. 

While Acura’s Integra race car began life in the same factory that builds Integra road cars and still had a VIN, Morris’s Golf was a fully custom-built race car wearing a Golf body. Well, a Golf body and a bonkers aero kit. Under the hood sat a turbocharged 2.0-liter engine cranking out more than 500 hp, giving it a 140-hp advantage over Yoshihara’s Integra. And when he reached the top, a mere three cars behind Yoshihara, Morris’s official time read 10:33.104. Seven-tenths of a second faster. Three more racers was all it took, and Dai Yoshihara was no longer the fastest person to ever race a front-wheel-drive car up Pikes Peak. 

Acura

Seven-tenths of a second. The time it takes to blink twice, if that. A difference so close to nothing, and yet, in racing, it proved to be the difference between setting a new record and holding onto it for another year. Absolutely heartbreaking. But the mountain didn’t care. Pikes Peak is a cruel, unforgiving mountain, and it refuses to play favorites. Your time is your time, and if someone else’s time is faster, that’s just the way it is. Come back and try again next year. If you’re brave enough to risk it all again, that is. 

Later that night, as Yoshihara joined a few of us for post-race cigars, the mood was light, but no one was celebrating. At least, not really. The race had gone about as well as it could have, but a tenth of a second here and a tenth of a second there adds up. Still, if Yoshihara’s heart was broken, he did an impressive job of hiding it. He’d had a job to do. He’d done it well. He just got a little unlucky. Besides, there’s always next year. The mountain isn’t going anywhere. It has time. Certainly more time than we do. We were on that mountain, and we’re on this Earth, for two blinks, at most. But long after we’re gone, Pikes Peak will remain. Still cold and indifferent, but standing there, daring whoever comes next to test just how fast they can race to the top.