Three days of qualifying are complete at the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, and France’s Romain Dumas has fired a warning shot that the once untouchable record of Sebastien Loeb is in jeopardy.
Driving the Volkswagen I.D. R Pikes Peak all-electric unlimited class prototype, Dumas on Wednesday set a spectacular time of 3 minutes, 16.083 seconds on the qualifying course that runs on the lower third of the 14,115-foot high mountain. That is more than 10 seconds faster than the record set in 2013 by Loeb at 3:26.153 in an unlimited Peugeot 208.
In theory, the full race record of 8:13.878 will be destroyed, but the mountain never makes things easy. The weather forecast a couple days out predicts an 80 percent chance of rain on Sunday -- race day.
