For more information on 000 Magazine visit 000magazine.com
This film is the story of David Donner’s drive in the 100th running of the famous Pikes Peak Hillclimb this year. Donner has won Pikes Peak outright three times and remains the last American to be crowned King of the Hill. This year he wasn’t aiming for the overall, instead hoping to reclaim the record he once held for the fastest production car up to the finish line at 14,115ft.
The plan was hatched along with renowned Porsche magazine, 000. And the car chosen for the task was a Porsche 911 Turbo S. It really was a production street car as well, licensed to drive on the road. Champion Motorsport prepared the car, with Technical Director Tom Pelov overseeing operations and Victor Scanapico carrying out the modifications with real artistry. As you’d expect, various additions and alterations had to be made to meet the safety regulations and these included a cage (built to NASCAR specs in NASCAR country), a competition seat, the deletion of all carpets (for fire safety), a fuel cell, a fire extinguisher system and electrical cut off (with switches so beautifully set into the central cup holder that they look like a factory option).
There were just a couple of performance enhancing modifications that could be made, the first of which was a new exhaust from Sharkwerks. This was installed mainly to help with turbo speeds at the higher altitudes. Incidentally, some cars apparently had to replace turbos on a daily basis but the factory items on the Turbo S remained bulletproof throughout.
The ECU was also tuned and the car ran on race fuel, but other than that it was stock. No changes were made to the suspension, brakes, transmission, AWD system, wheels or aerodynamics. Even the tyres were street-legal Michelin Cup 2 Rs.
Actually, there was one other change that might have helped shave a couple of psychological tenths: The rather inspiring livery. Pete Stout, editor of 000, and his team came up with the idea to put pages of one of the magazine’s features (about a 930 Turbo) onto the car. `Very fitting. And just as you might assume you need an EV to be competitive on Pikes Peak these days, so there is a narrative in media that digital is the only way forward and ‘print is dead’. As such the combination of an internal combustion engine car and a successful print magazine is rather a pleasing union.
Anyway, the 911 arrived at Pikes Peak at the start of the week with just 40 miles on the clock. It had covered 340 miles by the time it returned, under its own steam, to Donner’s garage at the end. No consumables other than fuel and tyres were replenished, nor did it require any alignment work.
Yet its performance was hardly slow and steady. The weather for the 100th Pikes Peak was atrocious, which realistically put the record out of reach. However, in terms of the pure 2022 competition, the inclement conditions undoubtedly swung the odds in both the driver’s and the car’s favour.
Using all his skill and years of accumulated knowledge Donner put in an incredible performance. I can only assume that driving into that thick cloud must have been like running full pelt into dense white smoke and counting your paces in order to dodge the fire you know is in there. But even on the relatively well-sighted lower slopes the commitment and speed is spectacular, especially given the clearly slippery surface.
And given the speed it is very easy to forget that the car is a production road car. For just this reason I love it when the film switches to the over-the-shoulder camera angle as the view is of an almost entirely standard road car interior. The trim is all there on the dashboard along with the familiar central touch screen showing the tyre pressure monitoring display. The everyday competition car.
The end result for Donner and the Turbo S was a sensational second place. Not in class. Second place overall. They were only beaten by Robin Schute in his wild Unlimited class Wolf TSC-FS (which has Turbo S-rivalling 600bhp but weighs only a touch over 500kg). Obviously the Exhibition class win was Donner’s as well, the Turbo S over half a minute clear of the second place Tesla Model 3.
In fact, even with the atrocious weather, Donner was a mere 16 seconds shy of the record he set out to beat. Next year, maybe. Perhaps with even less stress and more fun.
00:00 Intro What Is pIkes Peak
01:14 Who Is David Donner, Pike’s Peak Winner?
02:27 2022 Porsche 911 Turbo S, the car to race at Pikes Peak
02:47 000 Magazine, how did they get involved?
03:45 The Special Livery
06:35 The 2022 Pikes Peak Hill Climb
07:44 Full Pikes Peak Run On-Board Cameras
18:46 Conclusion
19:10 Credits
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