Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1002797
2018 PIKES PEAK INTERNATIONAL HILL CLIMB P106 Feature THE WEATHER DECIDES Between the end of final practice on Friday and race day on Sunday, a massive thunderstorm drenched Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak mountain. It was a short storm, lasting only a couple of hours, but it was violent enough to wash away all the rubber laid down by the bikes and cars over two weeks of competition and bring all the shit and dirt from the mountain onto the track. That made tire choice critical, but I trusted my gut and fit a scrubbed-in SC0 rear and SC1 front on race morn- ing, confident the track had enough heat in it to make them work. It did, until Rob Barber fell from the Buckeye Current RW-3x electric machine at the second-to- last hairpin before Devil's Playground. Rob's front brake lever came right back to the handlebar and he jumped off at over 100 mph, smashing into the rocks as his bike self-destructed around him. We knew nothing of his fate, as the race organiz- ers have adopted a policy of full silence to dissuade any whispers that can come from such an event. All I knew was there was a half-hour delay, and in that time, I watched a massive, menacing grey cloud roll in and cover one third of the mountain, drop- ping temperatures down with it. Had I thought of it at the time, I'd have put on the harder SC1 as that would've worked better, given the conditions. But I didn't, and before long Durell, Vahsholtz, Fillmore and Dunne had all jumped on their bikes and left the line. Then it's my turn. TUNNEL VISION Plenty as they are, you don't notice the spectators as you roll to the line. It's simply Frank you focus on, the man who will give you the 10-second count- down to send you to your fate. Frank lights the green and we're off. The timing starts as you blast under the start-line banner, and then it's you and the mountain. But by turn three of 156, the fast-downhill left taken in fifth gear on the Super Duke, I know conditions are far from ideal. I go into that left hard, but no harder than in qualifying when my bike, body and brain was warm from previous runs. The Super Duke hits the greasy spot and under-steers towards the trees, and for a split-second I think I'm in real, real trouble. Back on line for the approaching left and double rights, I tell myself to calm down and hit my lines. The grip level is getting less and less the higher we go, and I lose the front more times than I can count (Above) Minutes before the start, and it's all in your head now, boy. (Right) David O'Connor does some last-minute checks to the Super Duke before launch time.