With a grueling and twisty course that goes up to an elevation of 1,440m from the starting line all the way to the finish, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb requires more than just raw horsepower for one to even cross the finish line. It requires proper skills and respect to the 156-turn course to even make it to the finish line, or else any one of those turns will devour those who had shifted their focus for even a split second.
Jeremy Foley and his co-driver Yuri Kouznetsov were taking part in this Race to the Clouds, and they were confident in reaching the summit with a serious time in their 560-horsepower Lancer Evolution built by Evolution Dynamics. The car was good, both the driver and co-driver were ready; but somehow they would have to wait until next year for another opportunity to cross the finish line as they had misjudged the challenge posed by the Devil’s Playground.
From the footage, it looks like they had taken the corner a bit too wide and ended up rolling down the cliff a number of times, with the violent force shedding its bodywork along the way. Fortunately for those two, they could still live to see another day as the properly-designed roll cage had kept them alive during the downhill roll, but the Evo did take a serious beating. Both of them were then taken to the hospital, with one suffering a serious but non-life threatening injuries.
Despite such risk in running this race, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb had received numerous entries from all over the world, all with the same aim of conquering the summit of Pikes Peak under the 10-minute mark. Hopefully the duo of Jeremy and Yuri could come up with another beast to tame down this course and actually make it to the finish line in one piece for the next year’s run.
