Rod Millen had been a dominant force at Pikes Peak since first winning Class C in 1989, then taking the Open Class in 1991 and the Showroom Class in 1992. His route to the 1994 attempt was built on more than a decade of American motorsport success: three SCCA PRO Rally championships, consecutive SCCA National Rally titles in 1987 and 1988, the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship in 1989, and multiple Mickey Thompson Stadium Series championships. By 1994 Millen was running a fully factory-supported Toyota program, pairing his WRC-seasoned car control with a purpose-built hillclimb machine.
On the dirt and gravel surface that characterised the pre-paving era of the Pikes Peak Highway, Millen's 10:04.06 surpassed the standing record by a margin that underscored not just driver skill but a step-change in all-wheel-drive engineering and aerodynamic downforce. The time attack format meant Millen ran alone against the clock, threading the famously guardrail-free mountain road at speeds that demanded total commitment from the start line at mile seven of the highway to the finish at the summit.
Millen himself was vocal in the years that followed about the significance of the dirt-road context. When the City of Colorado Springs began paving the highway after a Sierra Club environmental settlement in the early 2000s, Millen warned publicly that paving would alter the nature of the event beyond recognition. The argument was partly grounded in his record: a time set on loose gravel, with the attendant risk of stones and unpredictable grip, carries a different weight than one set on asphalt.
The record survived for thirteen years. It was finally surpassed on 21 July 2007 by Japanese driver Nobuhiro Tajima driving a Suzuki XL7 Hill Climb Special to a time of 10:01.408 — but Tajima's run came after a portion of the road had already been paved, a distinction that Millen's supporters have consistently highlighted. After 1994, Millen posted the fastest overall time at the mountain in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999, each time falling short of his own sub-10-minute goal.
Millen went on to become one of the few competitors to have both husband-and-wife and father-and-son combinations win overall titles at Pikes Peak. His son Rhys Millen later set the overall course record at the 2012 event, the first running on fully paved asphalt, continuing the family's association with the mountain. Rod Millen was inducted into the Pikes Peak Hill Climb Museum Hall of Fame in 2016, with the 1994 run forming the centrepiece of his legacy at the race.