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Pikes-Peak-Ventoux-Test-Sessions
Nearly every year since 1916, over 100 of the most talented, most heroic, and most bat-shit-insane drivers and riders descend on the base of Pikes Peak outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The goal: make it up the 12.42-mile, 4,720-foot ascent on either two wheels or four – all without flying off one of the 156 gut-punishing turns.
It's Germany's Nürburgring draped on a Colorado mountain nearly three miles above sea level. And it's one of the most phenomenal motorsports events in the world.
At this weekend's race, the cast of competitors and characters is just as diverse, but the track is anything but. What used to be a combination of tarmac stages and dirt sections has been completely paved over, which means the speeds are quicker, the times are lower, and the risk is as high as the mountain is tall.
For the second year in a row, electric racers and juiced-up motorcycles are joining their fuel-burning counterparts to stake a claim as the fastest machines to Race to the Clouds. And because oxygen starvation isn't an issue for EVs, this could be the year that electrics begin to dominate the mountain.