It Will Certainly Take a Peak Effort for Millen to Break This Barrier

There aren’t many ultimate barriers in sports left to conquer. The 4-minute mile and 60 home runs have long since been broken and even Lou Gehrig’s consecutive- games record is history.

One remaining barrier, though, is the 10-minute run up Pikes Peak. In 77 years, no one has done it.

Rod Millen, a transplanted New Zealander who lives in Newport Beach, has come so close he hears those last few seconds ticking away in his sleep. And he’s not giving up.

On Sunday, Millen will be in his built-for-Pikes Peak, heavily modified four-wheel drive Toyota Tacoma pickup, poised to make 156 right- and left-hand turns, climbing from 9,000 to 14,110 feet over 12.42 miles of a narrow gravel road.

“I’ve been so close, I know I can do it,” said the 48-year-old former rally driver as he prepared for today’s qualifying runs in the 77th annual “Race to the Clouds” near Colorado Springs, Colo. “We need help from Mother Nature, a nice cool day.

“There’s nothing like this. It’s the ultimate hill climb. From the early morning practices all the way through race day, it’s one shot up the mountain, one chance to go as fast as you can while dealing with ever-changing conditions on the Peak.”

Millen will have a new ally this year: nitrous oxide.

The racing class in which the Tacoma is entered is unlimited, so last year authorities agreed to make the fuel unlimited too. This prompted Millen to prepare to use extra jolts of “pop” in his $600,000 machine to get much-needed bursts of speed near the top of the grueling run.

It can help, but it can also be counterproductive. Too much at one time can burn the pistons, or too much at the wrong time could send the truck sliding out of control.

“The longest straightaways are about 150 yards so there’s not much time to get the most out of it,” he said. “On the fastest stretches, we hit 140 mph, but we also drop down into first gear 18 times where the speed is about 45, maybe down to 30 at the apex of the corners.

“With the wheels spinning all the time from 800 horsepower, it puts a smile on my face every time I stand on the gas. This is my 15th year on the hill. I hope it’s the big one. We’ve been so close before.”

Millen set the record, 10 minutes 04.24 seconds, in a Toyota Celica in 1994. Last year he ran 10:07.32 in the Tacoma truck, which he said was accomplished without proper development time.

This year, Millen was ahead of schedule when a fire broke out in his shop six weeks ago and burned most of the component parts in the truck.

“Because most of the body was damaged, we replaced a lot of the carbon fiber body panels with fiberglass, which are less expensive but also heavier,” he said. “We weren’t able to test the truck up on the mountain, so I’m not sure what to expect. Thank goodness, though, no one was injured and we were able to salvage enough to prepare the truck for the race.”

Millen is a four-time winner at Pikes Peak but says he faces tough competition from Swedish rally driver Stig Blomqvist and Japan’s Nobuhiro Tajima.

THE IRWINDALE SHOW

Word of Irwindale Speedway’s new, wide-open, half-mile oval is attracting top drivers from the U.S. Auto Club’s Midwestern open-wheel championships. Three, all from Indiana, are coming West for Saturday night’s 30-lap USAC Western Regional midget car series main event:

* Ryan Newman of South Bend, is the USAC leader in the Coors Light Silver Bullet series and runner-up to Jason Leffler, 166-154, in the midget division.

* Tracy Hines of New Castle, has 10 national midget victories and was runner-up in the 1996 and 1997 USAC midget championship races. He also won last week’s Silver Bullet feature at Pikes Peak Raceway in Colorado.

* Brian Gerster of Indianapolis, won the postponed USAC Thomson 40 midget feature Wednesday night at Anderson, Ind., and was the 1992 midget rookie of the year.

They will be met by the best of the West Coast, headed by points leader Marc DeBeaumont of Clayton, Calif., who won at Irwindale on April 17 and at Stockton on May 15; Shane Scully of Encino, the series runner-up, and Alex Harris of Simi Valley, 1997 and 1998 three-quarter midget champion.

The TQs will run in a 20-lap feature on the one-third-mile oval with Randi Pankratz of Atascadero seeking her first victory while bidding to become USAC’s first female driving champion. Pankratz has top-five finishes in all six starts this year and holds a 24-point lead over Joshua Wise of Riverside.

Also on the program will be 360 super modifieds and a Fourth of July fireworks show.

CART OUT, IRL IN

The Indy Racing League has been generally unsuccessful in luring drivers away from rival CART’s champ car series, but it has taken a race track away.

Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport facility, which has been used by CART as a temporary road course since 1982, will become a flat 1.2-mile oval for the IRL next year.

After the race organizers, IMG Motorsports, rejected a sanction fee increase from $1.6 million to $2 million for the CART race, they turned to the IRL, which has been looking to expand its 11-race schedule.

“[IRL’s] economic philosophy will allow us to offer even more affordable ticket prices and sponsorship prices,” Bud Spanner, president of IMG Motorsports, said.

However, Mayor Michael R. White of Cleveland warned, “IMG and IRL are going to have to show professionally that they can provide the fans in this region a quality package with quality drivers and a quality experience.”

The IMG recently signed a five-year contract with the city to provide a race each summer, and IMG’s deal with the IRL is for three years.

The last CART-sanctioned race in Cleveland was Sunday’s rain-shortened event, won by Colombian rookie Juan Montoya.

CART, which this year has nine races in 13 weeks within a 500-mile radius of Detroit, will maintain a presence in Ohio with its race on the Mid-Ohio sports car course in Lexington.

WINSTON CUP

NASCAR will pass another milestone this week with the first telecast of an auto race live in prime time by a major network. CBS will show the 41st running of the Pepsi 400 from Daytona International Speedway on Saturday night.

This landmark event was scheduled last season but when the track’s first night race was postponed until October by wildfires in Florida, CBS’ live time on Saturday was not available.

Fifth place and a $61,000 paycheck apparently didn’t improve Jimmy Spencer’s feelings about racing in Sunday’s Save Mart/Kragen 350 on Bruton Smith’s road course at Sears Point in Sonoma, Calif. After the race, Spencer said, “I wish Bruton would take the place and make a flower garden out of it.”

LAST LAPS

Cort Wagner of Los Angeles overcame a major crash during practice to win the GT race of the American Le Mans series at Mosport Park, Canada, last weekend. Conditions at Mosport were so bad that former Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan and the LeMans-winning BMW team of Bill Auberlen, JJ Lehto, Jorg Muller and Joachim Winkelhock withdrew because of “insufficient safety standards.”

The U.S. Tobacco Co. will not renew its sponsorship of Andy Petree’s Skoal Racing team and Winston Cup driver Ken Schrader for next season. U.S. Tobacco has been associated with NASCAR since 1981 when Harry Gant drove for a team owned by Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds.

NECROLOGY

Ned Spath, a veteran of California Racing Assn. competition in the 1960s, died June 10 after suffering a stroke. Spath, 65, finished second to Don Thomas in 1966 and fourth in 1967 in the CRA.