The first Pikes Peak Hill Climb was promoted by Spencer Penrose, who had converted the narrow carriage road into the much wider Pikes Peak Highway. The first Penrose Trophy was awarded in 1916 to Rea Lentz with a time of 20:55.60. In the same year Floyd Clymer won the motorcycle class with a time of 21:58.41. In 1924 the final Penrose Trophy was awarded to Otto Loesche in his Lexington Special. Glen Schultz and Louis Unser shared a rivalry and won the event 12 times between them. The popular stock car class was added in 1929.
Following World War Two, Louis Unser returned to his winning ways, winning three more times between 1946 and 1970 in close competition with rival Al Rogers. During this period the event was part of the AAA and USAC IndyCar championship. In 1953 the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) sponsored the event, bringing an influx of sports cars. The course record was broken every year from 1953 until 1962 — the largest unbroken streak in the event's history — with the majority of those records set by Louis's nephew Bobby Unser. Motorcycles returned in 1954, the first time since 1916; the motorcycle overall victory that year went to Bill Meier riding a Harley-Davidson.
In 1971 the event was won by the first non-gasoline vehicle (propane), which was also the first overall victory from the stock car class — a 1970 Ford Mustang driven by the Danish-American Ak Miller.
In 1984 the first European racers took part in the PPIHC: Norwegian rallycrosser Martin Schanche in a Ford Escort Mk3 4x4 and French rally driver Michèle Mouton in an Audi Sport quattro, together with World Rally Championship co-driver Fabrizia Pons from Italy. Schanche failed to set a new track record due to a flat tyre; Mouton won the Open Rally category but not the overall. The following year Mouton achieved the overall victory and course record of 11:25.39.
In 1987 Walter Röhrl won the overall race and set a new record of 10:47.85 in the Audi Sport quattro S1 Pikes Peak. In 1989 a short film titled Climb Dance was released by French director Jean-Louis Mourey, documenting Finnish former World Rally Champion Ari Vatanen winning the 1988 event in a record-breaking time of 10 minutes and 47 seconds in a turbocharged Peugeot 405 Turbo 16.
The City of Colorado Springs began paving the highway in 2002 after losing a lawsuit against the Sierra Club, which had sued over erosion damage to streams, reservoirs, vegetation and wetlands caused by 1.5 million tons of road gravel deposited over decades. Approximately 10% of the route was paved per year; the 2011 event was the last race with dirt sections (around 25% of the course).
During this transitional period, Japanese driver Nobuhiro Tajima with Suzuki cars scored 6 overall victories (2006–2011) and two course records. His 2011 record was the first to break the 10-minute barrier. Hill climb champion Rod Millen warned at the time that paving would end the race; the 2012 event drew over 170 registrations by December 2011, compared with 46 at the same time the previous year.
The 90th running of the event in 2012 was the first held entirely on asphalt. The overall record fell several times, ultimately to Rhys Millen, son of Rod Millen, in the Time Attack Division. During the event Mike Ryan spun his big rig in a hairpin in a section called "the Ws", hit the guardrail, executed a three-point turn, continued the course, and still broke his old record by 5 seconds. The 2012 event also saw the first motorcycle to record a sub-10-minute time: Carlin Dunne in the 1205 Division on a Ducati with 9:52.819, only 1.5 seconds slower than the previous year's overall record.
In 2013 Sébastien Loeb shattered the nine-minute barrier in a Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak with a time of 8:13.878. Rhys Millen finished second at 9:02.192, beating his own record by more than 44 seconds. Jean-Philippe Dayrault finished third (9:42.740) and Paul Dallenbach fourth (9:46.001) — four drivers beating the record set only the year before.
Electric cars have featured in the PPIHC since the early 1980s. In 1981 Joe Ball took a Sears Electric Car to the top in 32:07.410; in 1994 Katy Endicott completed the course in 15:44.710. In 2013 Nobuhiro Tajima broke the 10-minute barrier with an electric car, recording 9:46.530 in his E-RUNNER Pikes Peak Special. In 2014 the event was won by a gasoline-powered car but second (Greg Tracy), third (Hiroshi Masuoka) and fourth (Nobuhiro Tajima) places went to electric cars. In 2015 electric cars placed first (Rhys Millen) and second (Nobuhiro Tajima) overall. In 2016 gasoline again took top honours; electric cars placed second (Rhys Millen), third (Tetsuya Yamano) and fifth (Nobuhiro Tajima).
At the 2018 event Frenchman Romain Dumas completed the course in the all-electric Volkswagen I.D. R in 7:57.148, breaking the 8-minute barrier for the first time in the event's history.
Motorcycle racing has been part of the PPIHC since 1916. The very first motorcycle winner was Floyd Clymer, known for the Clymer repair manuals, riding a British Excelsior. Motorcycle competition was intermittent in the early decades, contested only in 1916, 1954–1955, 1971–1976 and 1980–1982. Mass starts made visibility poor; in both 1976 and 1982 racing was called off due to accidents. In 1982 William Gross Jr. was killed when struck by another competitor.
It was not until 1991 that motorcycles became an established part of competition, following the development of a staggered wave-start timing system in 1990. Wally Dallenbach was appointed to organise the new motorcycle competition but withdrew two months before the event; hill climb chief Nick Sanborn then approached Bill Brokaw to take over. Brokaw and Sonny Anderson organised motorcycle races for 20 years until 2011.
Through the 1990s flattrack motorcycles were fastest; quads won during the late 1990s and 2000s. As the road was progressively paved, supermotards gained popularity. In 2004 Davey Durelle won on a Honda CRF450, ending a streak of quad victories (his engine legality was later questioned). By 2012 the fully paved course prompted Carlin Dunne to set the first sub-10-minute motorcycle time on a Ducati Multistrada.
On 30 June 2019 four-time PPIHC winner Carlin Dunne was killed when his prototype Ducati Streetfighter V4 crashed less than a quarter of a mile from the finish line. The organisation postponed motorcycle racing; after review following the 2021 event, motorcycle competition was discontinued altogether. The fastest ever motorcycle time is 9:44.963, set by Rennie Scaysbrook on an Aprilia Tuono V4 during the 2019 event.
The PPIHC is contested across six divisions. The Unlimited Division accepts any vehicle passing safety inspection; it features the most exotic purpose-built machinery with the best chance of setting a new overall record. Time Attack 1 is for production-based two- and four-wheel-drive closed-cockpit vehicles. The Porsche Pikes Peak Trophy by Yokohama, debuting in 2018, is an exclusive one-make category for the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport in four variants. Open Wheel covers traditional single-seater designs from Indy-style sprinters to dune buggies; open-wheel cars have competed in every event since 1916. Pikes Peak Open admits production vehicles with unlimited modifications. The Exhibition Class encourages competitors whose vehicles do not fit standard specifications; entries are eligible for overall course records but not class records.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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