Elevated Effort – RMR’s Pike’s Peak World Record Back Story

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Rhys Millen, Hyundai Genesis

 

The only other car that we thought could beat us was Romain Dumas and the 911, which was a well prepped GT3 cup car with big wheels, tires and all sorts of other added stuff. I was surprised that it was still naturally aspirated. Porsche does make a GT2 that is turbo, but even though he was N/A, the car was still really fast. He ran a 9:46.181, which set a new overall record and the record in the Open class. At that point we thought maybe he would have it.

 

Pikes peak, hyundai genesis
Did someone say it was raining at the top of the hill?

 

We finished prepping the car and got it to the start line. Rhys takes off and it's all in his hands now. About 1/3rd of the way up the hill they have a timing loop, and when Rhys got there he was only 2 seconds behind Dumas. Based off of our practice times and everyone else’s times we thought he could make it up at the top of the hill because Rhys’s times up there were disproportionately faster than everyone else’s compared to the other sections. Then we’re starting to hear reports of rain at the top and I’m thinking, ‘OK, just get to the top and don’t crash.’  - slick tires and wet roads are not a good thing. Then it came over the radio that he may have set the new record by 17 thousandths of a second—he ran a 9:46.164. We were all jumping up and down but the next five minutes were surreal while the organizers confirmed that the time was accurate. Rhys had just set a new overall record at Pikes Peak – I could hardly believe it. 

 

Rhys Millen, Hyundai Genesis, Pikes Peak

 

When we were talking earlier in the week we thought Rhys might have a chance to do this and at least set the record temporarily if the Unlimited cars ran later in the afternoon. We knew we could probably beat Tajima’s time from last year but we never really expected the Unlimited cars to fall out to the point where we would be able to hold the overall record. 

We finally told Rhys about the exhaust leak about 20 minutes after he came down the hill. He was really cool about it…asked if it was really a problem and we said no. Since he had just set the new record we don’t think he really cared at that point. 

 

Rhys millen racing, pikes peak, hyundai genesis

 

We did a few other things we didn’t tell him about too. He has an Aim dash in the car with warning lights that are set pretty aggressively for the drift set up. It’s connected to the AEM EMS by a serial stream since the car originally had a Series 1 EMS in it and it was easier to just hook it up than run the extra CAN lines. I bumped all the warnings up so that if they ran a little higher than normal it didn’t trigger a light. If temps went up a little higher than normal while he was driving there really wasn’t anything Rhys could do about it but worry, and we didn’t want that while he was going for a record. There is no next round on the hill and we wanted to make sure he could stay focused on driving, not looking at warning lights and sliding off a cliff.

 

Pikes Peak Hill Climb, Rhys Millen

Victory. And a new overall World record. Not bad for a production based car. It helps that it had one of the best behind the wheel in Rhys Millen.

Then I was thinking, what if back in May I decided to take a few degrees of timing out of the ignition map? Or what if we ran different tire pressures? What would the outcome have been if the flat shift didn’t work and he had a single mis-shift? There are a number of inconsequential things that could have affected the outcome. The margin of victory was so close that it boggles the mind. Given what we had to overcome—an exhaust leak, no LSD, rain at the top of the hill, it seems like any little change might have made the difference. Of course, I also wonder how fast the car would have been without the issues we had.

I’ve been coming up to the hill with Rhys for the last 3 years, and when it comes to driving Pikes Peak, he knows what he's doing. He’s been going there for 18 years and it shows. You only get one shot up the mountain per year and you don’t get to practice it in full, only in sections, and that's where his experience there really helps out. We as a team knew we just needed to provide a car that could get him to the top as fast as possible and he would do the rest. 

 

Pikes Peak course

 

Looking to next year we know we can run a faster time with the car set up exactly as it is now, but we know the Unlimited cars will be back and there will probably be some other crazy cars there too. I have a good feeling that next year the record will fall again, but I want to do everything I can to make sure that when it does fall, it’s Rhys in the driver’s seat again. 

If you want to see more on this history making car check back for a full write up on the Hyundai Genesis on MotoIQ very soon. We’ll pop the hood, crawl underneath it and shoot the cabin to deliver every fine detail.  

 

Hyundai Genesis, Hill Climb

 

 

Rhys Millen Racing

 

 

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