COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, brought to you by Gran Turismo, welcomed 64 drivers to the 12.42-mile course, kicking off practice runs Tuesday on the America’s Mountain.
With four days of practice on the mountain, competitors in six divisions will get a crack at one of three sections of the mountain each day. All competitors qualify in the lower section to determine their start order in Sunday’s race.
With the Pikes Peak Open and Exhibition divisions on hand, the current course recordholder, Romain Dumas set a Pikes Peak Open qualifying record, a blistering 3:32.831 during his fourth qualifying run.
It marked the second year in a row that Dumas and an electric Ford Performance entry, this time the 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck, would best the previous mark. Joining him in the sub-four-minute range would be Jimmy Ford, who first broke the barrier on his third run and then did so twice more.
Of the Exhibition runners, it was multi-time WRC event winner Dani Sordo who would pace the class in his Hyundai IONIQ 5 N TA Spec. Sordo’s best run came in the third session for the group, as he posted a 4:01.514. Fellow rookie Ron Zaras was second in class in the more production-based variant of the IONIQ 5 N with a 4:28.796.
Two closely matched pairs in the Open Wheel and Time Attack 1 classes kept things interesting all morning long. The Open Wheel entries of Codie Vahsholtz and Cole Powelson each posted their top times on their final runs; Vahsholtz ran a 2:33.988 in his 2013 Ford Open, while Powelson’s late switch to the proven 2021 Sierra Alpha saw him end the morning with a 2:38.839.
Leading a Porsche lockout of the top five overall times in TA1, David Donohue, in his 2014 911 Turbo R set a time of 2:42.285 in the second run, and the battle was on for anyone to catch him. Raymond Guerrero came closest, posting a 2:45.167 in the fourth run in his 2019 GT2 RS Clubsport.
European hill climb champion Christian Merli set the bar high for the rest of the Unlimited competitors in the 2024 Wolf Aurobay GB08, with a 2:32.637 in his second pass up to the finish line.
That was nearly five seconds faster than veteran Dan Novembre, also in a Wolf, who scored a 2:37.265 in his final run.
The brand-new Pikes Peak GT4 Trophy by Yokohama saw Nuno Caetano with the best time in the division with a 2:47.970 which came in his seventh of eight runs. Behind him, Laura Hayes and Robb Holland were separated by less than half a second, with each posting times in the 2:51 range.