Sixty-one year old motorsport legend Nobuhiro 'Monster' Tajima, almost certainly the oldest world class athlete competing in any sport today, won his sixth consecutive Pikes Peak International Hill Climb on Sunday, at the same time as breaking the long standing 10 minute barrier for the course which rises 1.5 kilometers from start to oxygen-starved finish. Nissan's electric LEAF established a new electric car record for the course and Ducati's "four bikes in 1" Multistrada defended its 2010 win with a new record too.
Monster's winning time of 9 minutes, 51.278 seconds came despite major mechanical problems in his run up the mountain when a blown radiator and a sudden loss of power steering in the final stages could easily have robbed him of the title, perhaps even his life given the dramatic drop-offs just feet from the edge of the circuit.
As is customary, Tajima drove a vehicle labelled as a Suzuki SX4 and sponsored by his native Japan's Suzuki corporation. The vehicle might have a shape in there that resembles a Suzuki SX4 shape, but in almost every respect, the car shares very little with the road car it purportedly is derived from. Similarly, the beast's twin turbocharged Suzuki V6 has been tweaked to produce a remarkable 680 kW of power and 890 Nm of torque.
Excepts by Jack Martin
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