Red Bull Hyundai Genesis Coupe and Rhys Millen Set World Record to Take Pikes Peak Time Attack Title World Champion Driver Rhys Millen Claims Ninth Mountain Win
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., July 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The 87th Annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has a new world record holder today - the Rhys Millen Racing Red Bull Hyundai Genesis Coupe. World Champion driver Rhys Millen piloted the Genesis Coupe to his ninth overall class title, breaking one of his two world records in 17 trips to the Hill Climb.
"Driving the Genesis Coupe for the first time at Pikes Peak in front of thousands of fans is an amazing experience," said Millen. "Nothing compares to the pressure and thrill of Pikes Peak while competing against yourself for the record."
Millen set the record time of 12 minutes, 9 seconds (12:09.397) more than 1 minute and 23 seconds faster than his nearest competitor in the rear-wheel-drive Time Attack Class. At the finish line on the summit of Pikes Peak, Millen reported that the car that never skipped a beat, no matter how hard he challenged the diverse terrain and high altitude, and finished with both rear tires down to steel belts. Millen utilized the Genesis Coupe's rear-drive layout to its full potential, power-sliding his Genesis Coupe mere inches away from guard rails, trees and 2,000-foot cliffs, while besting his own record of 12 minutes, 31.61 seconds by 22 seconds.
See the full video below:
The RMR Red Bull Hyundai Genesis Coupe uses the APR GTC-500 Carbon Fiber Adjustable Wing to not only improve grip on dirt surfaces, but also to improve grip on asphalt race track surfaces found in the Formula Drift professional drifting series. Click here to find out more about the APR GTC-500 Wing.
Rally Ready Motorsports wins again at Pikes Peak! Second consecutive Pikes Peak Open Division Win for Carapetyan and Rally Ready
"This place always gets somebody, you have to bring your A-game" says Dave Carapetyan at 5:00 a.m. from the top of Colorado's Pikes Peak during pre-race practice. It's his 5th year here and he's defending a title and a big win from last year while keeping things on the safe side of a very deadly limit. Dave and his crew are preparing to race up a 14,110 ft tall mountain on a 12.4 mile course of mixed pavement and gravel with few guardrails and sheer cliffs. It's the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, one of the oldest and most prestigious motor-sport events in the world, and it's his for the taking.
At 21, Dave Carapetyan is not just a veteran at the PPIHC, he is the owner of Rally Ready Motorsports, a safety equipment and race preparation shop in Austin, Texas. On July 20th, Dave piloted his one of a kind Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution to a bittersweet victory over rival Dave Kern by a margin of 20 seconds. As of May, the team had no support and weren't going to be able to put this program together. "It took 6 weeks from hell and a lot of blood, sweat and hard work to get the car to the start line. It's incredible to stand here considering what we were working with. We knew we were set for the battle of the Dave's against a much faster car and a much more potent team. Our only chance was to push them as hard as we could and to push ourselves as hard as we could. After all, they had as much money in their suspension and transmission as we had in our whole car." said Dave from the summit of Pikes Peak.
Conditions for Sunday's race were said to be some of the worst this decade, for Dave they were even more difficult as their Mitsubishi lost power right off of the start line. The turbocharger boost pressure plummeted in half and the ignition system experienced intermittent failure for the entire race. To add insult to injury, it began to rain just as they left the start line making conditions that much more epic. In the end, the team is about a minute off of their target time but is impressed with the time considering the conditions.
Dave's navigator Adam Kneipp who stood in for the team's regular adds "We were a bunch of nobody's at the beginning of the week and by the end of the week we had BF Goodrich's tire engineers copying our tire design for their Ford factory-supported Fiesta team driven by World Rally Champion Marcus Grönholm." The team points out the time sheets that even with half power they put 20 seconds on factory Hyundai driver Rhys Millen in his 2WD Genesis Coupe and a mere 24 seconds off the pace of Grönholm's Ford.
Crew chief Wes Aylor says "Dave worked that car harder than anybody on the mountain, we're overjoyed with the result and are poised for a deadly assault next year. I can't say much but barring the ever present unknowns, we're certain we've got the car and driver to take down the division record, hopefully by as much as 30 seconds." He adds "Our setup engineers worked tirelessly this week chasing down the ideal setting and we think we got it by race day. Our data shows the car was handling fantastic and our splits were remarkably fast considering the engine trouble."
Rally Ready Motorsports would like to thank their sponsors Nonna Gina's Italian Restaurant, Rocky Top Motel & Campground, Tuning Concepts, PostNet Austin, 5Zigen Wheels, GoPro Camera, Harris Hill Road, APR Performance and our friends and family who made this possible.
The Rally Ready Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution uses the APR GTC-500 Carbon Fiber Adjustable Wing and APR EVIL-R Widebody Aerodynamic Kit to help improve tire grip and reduce aerodynamic drag on the extremely challenging Pikes Peak hill-climb course. Click here to find out more about the APR GTC-500 Wing.
Slick Auto Baby Monster sets a track record at Willow Springs Raceway
We brought our Baby Monster Miata out to Willow Springs International Raceway (WSIR) (Rosamond, CA) with Speed Ventures for a day (Saturday) of drifting at the WSIR Balcony and a day (Sunday) of open track / time attack at the WSIR Big Track. Of course, we were not eligible to compete in the Corvette Challenge with our non-Corvette vehicle, so the title of this blog entry is not entirely true. We did however set the fastest lap time of the weekend compared to all other cars, and walk away with a Miata Challenge Time Attack Unlimited Class win at a blazingly-fast lap time of 1:29.637 in 100F weather.
Since our last event at this track (Redline Time Attack @ Big Willow), we had made adjustments to the suspension ride heights and performed additional aero modifications to allow the car to work better at this track. With our car at 2270 lbs. (1/2 tank of fuel, with passenger seat, not including the driver) and no more than 230whp (on the hot day), a stock C5 Z06 was still easily walk away from us on a straight.
So we directed even more of our recent efforts to improving the overall aero balance of the car. The left-side vertical underbody skirt was still intact, as well as all the other aero goodies we previously added. Despite the unimpressive power-to-weight ratio (compared to other high HP cars), we still hoped that our little Miata could be recognized as a fast "Big Track car." As long as the car could run reliability, we knew we could set some fast lap times.
Once it was all set up, we handed the car over our racing driver, Charles Ng (http://charlesngracing.com/). He is a phenomenal driving talent, with proven ability to consistently drift or set fast lap times in every car he's ever hopped into.
Take a close look at this static vs. high speed ride height comparison picture below. The picture on the right was taken from next to the starter tower on the front straight. We didn't have data acquisition running, but the RPM and gearing gave us indication that the car was traveling somewhere north of 130 MPH at this point. See how much closer to the ground the car was, and check out those front and rear tire-to-fender gaps!
Do you believe in aero yet?
With the S2000 Challenge on Saturday, the Corvette Challenge (which included the very well-sorted Alvaka Networks T1 Corvette race car) and Miata Challenge on Sunday, a Viper ACR, and various other fast cars at track, we knew it was not going to be easy to achieve our goal. Our toughest struggle turned out to be the heat issues in the 100F weather. Once we found the work-around for that, we were able to set the fast lap we had been looking for.
1. 1st place, Miata Challenge, Unlimited Class.
2. Fastest lap time of the weekend vs. all other cars in attendance.
3. Only car to hit a sub-1:30 lap time during this weekend.
4. Official WSIR Big Track record for a Miata during a competition event, at 1:29.637.
Here is a short blurb from Charles Ng with regards to how he felt in the Slick Auto Baby Monster:
"The car and its aero setup gives me tons of confidence. Braking power is awesome and it takes twice as much effort to lock up the brakes...very predictable setup and absolutely amazing cornering Gs, one of the best balanced street-modified time attack cars I have driven"
Check out this action-packed video of the weekend with Charles behind the wheel, including both Balcony time and the 1:29.637 hot lap on the Big Track:
We hope that sharing our experience here can effectively demonstrate what well-balanced aero modifications can do for a slightly-overweight (compared to other Miatas), under-powered (compared to non-Miatas) at Big Willow. Do we still think Big Willow a horsepower track? Sure, why not? If we had another 100 HP on tap, we would probably have seen mid-1:25.xxx lap times...in the same 100F weather.
We'll be back to Big Track again, but perhaps not during the middle of summer. We're now working to improve the efficiency of the cooling system (we'll share updates on this as we go along) and we'll get back out to another local track for some more testing soon.
Lastly, we would like to send out our biggest thanks to APR Performance for their awesome support and for creating the best race-proven aerodynamic products that money can buy. We could not have done this without APR!
The Slick Auto Baby Monster Miata uses the APR GTC-300 Carbon Fiber Adjustable Wing, APR Carbon Fiber / Nomex Honeycomb Front Wind Splitter, APR Carbon Fiber Front Bumper Canards, APR Rear Diffuser, and Slick Auto / APR Carbon Fiber Side Mirrors. This dedicated track car is built to compete in the Redline Time Attack series. Visit slickauto.net to find out more about the Baby Monster!
