Palatov Motorsport 2012 Pikes Peak Blastoff

The Palatov Motorsports crew just announced their intent to take three of their cars to Pikes Peak in 2012, this is beyond exciting for me and anyone else who has watched the development of these cars over the last 9 years.

The flagship "D1" which is already outfitted with a Hartley V8 spinning all four wheels via a paddle shifted sequential gearbox has a turbo charger in its immediate future which will maintain 500hp over the entire course. Was that a run-on sentence? Does it make sense? Who cares, with 500 tiny V8- flavored rage-ponies pushing 1100lbs up the mountain the "D1T" is nothing like Sparta and most certainly madness.

Full details on the Pike Peak plan: http://www.palatov.com/pikespeak/

Info on the D1/D4 including the entire development story on each of the cars, weeks of reading: http://dpcars.net/

D1 first drive with the 430hp N/A engine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzTuVz98Giw

D4 kicking ass at ORP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3I7dd8jC2I

I've autocrossed against this car in person, and it seriously bad@$$.

Likely due to the fact that the entire course will be paved next year.

How low do we expect times to fall? are we looking at a sub-9 minute run up the hill now? No need for tire tread whatsoever! Gimme race slicks and a ton of downforce, I'm goin' for it!

BTW, those sidewalls look awfully tall there...curious...

So Ohio GRM trip to Pikes Peak next year to see it run?

I haven't looked at the dpcars.net site for a while, guess I better catch up on things.

I think they'd better add some aero downforce.

EvanB wrote: So Ohio GRM trip to Pikes Peak next year to see it run?

I'd be down. Especially if Jeff Zwart is running a Porsche again next year (maybe a 991 C4...), then I might be able to play it off as a "writing" trip to SWMBO...

July 3-8, 2012. That's a definite maybe for me . This year will be interesting. As much as the dirt will be missed, I think there will be quite a few new faces to watch for. Petter Solberg is supposed to be coming over.

EvanB wrote: So Ohio GRM trip to Pikes Peak next year to see it run?

In for this also, think we should take Bilevan?

One of my wifes good friends can see Pikes Peek from her back porch, we are planning on going out next year.

ansonivan wrote:

EvanB wrote: So Ohio GRM trip to Pikes Peak next year to see it run?

In for this also, think we should take Bilevan?

Of course we should take Bilevan, what kind of question is that?

I was planning on going anyway but if we can get an Ohio caravan/carpool going that would be awesome.

I, too, have keeping an eye on DPM for ages. I cannot wait to see this happen!

Road surface will still be challenging - it can (and often does) snow, or rain. or blow, or bake, sometimes all at the same time at various locations on the road. And previous cars and/or bikes and quads can drag gravel onto the surface. I covered it 19 years for GRM and other magazines, and Pikes Peak is a don't miss event that every car nut has to see at least once.

That car looks like it will need more rollover protection - like a full cage - and some serious downforce. Under ideal conditions, I think 9:15 is doable in the near futireby someone - but ideal conditions don't happen very often.

I wonder what would happen if you brought one of the european hillclimb championship formula cars over here and ran it up PP? Racecar Engineering did a windtunnel study on one of those versus an old Benneton-Ford F1 car, and the amount of downforce was nearly identical despite a much shorter floor (less area to work with for aero use) on the hillclimb car

I'd say it would be very interesting - I've read those articles, and the cars are really sophisticated. That said, it would need a lot more wing (the air is a lot thinner than most people realize, which affects aero at least as much as power), and a bunch more power, preferably turbocharged, again due to the thin air. The Peak starts at around 9500 feet elevation and tops out at 14, 110.

But ultimately, I think that's the way to go for the overall record under ideal conditions, although AWD would be a big advantage at the power levels we're talking about.

I wonder how a fan car would work at that altitude, now that it's paved?