Practice Underway for Pikes Peak Hill Climb

Just the Facts:

• Two electric cars are entered in the 89th "Race to the Clouds."
• Conventional vehicles will once again shoot to break the 10-minute mark.
• The race covers 12.42 miles, with 156 turns and 4,721 feet in elevation change.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — Practice sessions began Wednesday for the 89th edition of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, with competitors in 11 classes of automobiles and trucks roaring up a segment of the 12.42-mile course.

Well, most of them were roaring. Two made little if any noise other than the sound of tires-on-pavement friction: The purpose-built Yokohama Summit HER-02 and the virtually stock Nissan Leaf are battery-powered.

Electrics, all the rage in the auto industry nowadays, got their own class last year after several years of one-off entries in the exhibition category. The record for an electric vehicle on the course, which winds its way through 156 turns and climbs 4,271 feet in altitude, is 14 minutes, 33.12 seconds, set in 2003.

The overall mark is 10:01.408, established in 2007 by Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima in an Unlimited-class, 900-horsepower Suzuki XL7 Hill Climb Special. The five-time champion from Japan will lead a small but impressive Unlimited field in yet another assault on the 10-minute mark, this year behind the wheel of a modified 2011 Suzuki SX4 Hill Climb Special.

Competitors include Rhys Millen in the Hyundai RMR PM580; Paul Dallenbach in a Banks-powered Dallenbach Racing unlimited car; Jean-Philippe Dayraut in a heavily modified, Romanian-built Dacia Duster, and Dave Carapetyan, last year's Open Division winner who moves up this year to the Unlimited division.

A returnee to the Peak is 17-year-old Colorado teen Savannah Rickli, the rookie of the year in 2010 and the youngest person to finish the race.

Also returning to competition after a decade of inactivity at the Peak is Millen's father, 60-year-old Rod Millen, a five-time champion at Pikes Peak who triggered anticipation about the fall of the 10-minute barrier when he ran a 10:04.06 in 1994. That mark stood until Tajima bettered it 13 years later, but the barrier still stands. Rod Millen this year is piloting a Hyundai Genesis Coupe.

The rip-snorting Unlimited vehicles and other established classes, such as open wheel, super stock, big-rig semi tractors and others, make big-time noise and put on the show which has made the event, first held in 1916, an attraction.

However, they have also made it controversial in a world that is increasingly contentious over environmental issues. This year's race, in an aside on that subject, will be the last on a mixed-surface course, as the entire route will be paved before next year's race.

Inside Line says: The HER-02 is a one-off concept vehicle, but the Leaf is a bone-stock version of the Nissan production car with some safety modifications. Look for the EV division to expand next year. — David Green, Correspondent