Of the many competitors we met at Pikes Peak, not one seemed cocky about being there. Some were more humble than others, but all projected a sober respect for the mountain. They're all seasoned racers. In past lives, though, maybe big wave surfers. Or astronauts...

ALL DAY LONG drivers and riders cross the finish line in regular intervals and accumulate at the summit, talking to the media, reliving their runs, enjoying some famous Pikes Peak donuts. And by the end of the day there's a palpable energy in the thin air — a celebration that culminates with a parade down the mountain, each of the class winners carrying a well-earned checkered flag. High-fiving the fans lining the course...

Squinting back to that Sunday afternoon, my hazy, oxygen-deprived memory reveals Carlin Dunne riding by on a spectral black Ducati, flag in hand.

Greg Tracy had introduced me to Carlin the day before, saying he was the fastest rider on the mountain in practice. At the time, Greg was in the process of bailing on a photo shoot we were setting up at the quirky cool Rainbow Lodge. He was bummed, but curfew was fast approaching and he still had a couple hours worth of work to do. As he was leaving, I remember joking him about not knowing how to wish a racer good luck. "Break a leg" seemed too close to home.

And now, nearly 24 hours later, we were left to wonder what had happened to Greg on (or off) the road below us. I consider myself an optimist these days, but when you hear a world-class rider is unaccounted for on a course like Pikes Peak, thoughts turn dark quickly.

Like everything else on race day, just getting down the mountain proved to be a very big deal. Somehow I ended up in the driver's seat of the Dumonde Tech Pacifica as we filed down the 150-plus-turn course towards the pits. Any other time I might have enjoyed it, but we were preoccupied.

At every turn, fans were straggling to the lower elevations, coolers in hand. Sunburned. Happy. Meanwhile, in the back seat, our producer Chris Nazarenus (MyLifeAtSpeed) was methodically trying to reach other team members by phone. By radio. Just then we got our first indication of what had happened to Greg.

The No. 555 Ducati Multistrada was perched on the shoulder among the switchbacks. It was upright, but had clearly not spent the day that way. It seemed to be missing pieces. The number plate was gone or in the wrong place. It was filthy.

I made a highly illegal U-turn at the next corner where we asked some fans for their take on the bike and missing rider. They had not seen a crash, but rather said the bike had coasted to a stop and the rider had left it there.

Only when we made it back to the pits did we get the full story. From the man himself.

When I saw Greg, he was sitting in the back of the Spider Grips Ducati van in his street clothes. He looked relaxed. He was eating chips with salsa out of the jar. His red and white Ducati leathers were thrashed in a way that made my head hurt even worse. Greg was holding his leg out oddly straight like you do when something is awry. But overall, he looked good.

He wasn't sure what caused the crash at the time, but later would deduce that he had slipped in oil left over from a mechanical failure on one of the cars. His helmet cam shows a pretty gnarly puddle on the pavement just before he lays it down.

Other video shows a good number of spectators witness the crash, which begs the question, why the delay in information to the summit? It's simple, really. When you're at the summit, you might as well be on the moon.

In true competitor form, Greg is looking forward, not back — proud of his team and his all-or nothing effort. Honored to be associated with the likes of Ducati. But he's a dad and a husband and a human. And he's not blind to the dangers.

Pikes Peak will have changed forever by the time the 2012 PPIHC kicks off. The remaining stretches of dirt will be paved during the off season, turning the mountain into a fiendishly fast and unforgiving road course. With that, old records will fall and the risks will increase dramatically.

"I'm a little concerned with the speeds as we move to all asphalt. To win, you have to push it literally to the edge," the six-time winner says with a hint of caution. Fleeting caution. "Next time I will be leaving with the record." — JR

(Photo: Adam Ewing)

 

...spend a few days days at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. If the mountain itself doesn't serve up a healthy dose of humility, its heroic inhabitants surely will. Pikes is one of those places that feels overly dangerous, even to a mild speed demon like me. Guardrails seem to appear only when the drop-offs hit four figures. Every turn reveals a laundry list of conditions that would warrant a permanent closure anywhere else. The road changes from paved to dirt and back, snaking up the mountain like a trick question.

And we would experience it in all its twisted glory.

A few months ago, it was decided that I would tag along with Adam Ewing on one of his yearly speed-seeking pilgrimages. Neither of us had much of an idea what to expect. We would meet up with the Spider Grips Ducati Team in Colorado Springs. And we'd get a better-than-average view of the race. Good enough. Spontaneous folks that we are, we loaded up our bikes with cameras, disposable clothes and a bunch of camping gear that we'd never use. Oh, and we brought along our buddy Ricky Henry (on his modified Virago cafe rat) for good measure.

For the sake of focus, I'll save most of the trip details for later. But I will say that we were compelled to ride to our destination and back — nearly 5,000 miles. It was a chance to step back from the minutia of a working garage and into a great expanse of country. To look up from spark plug gaps and timing marks and see something that went on and on. To fly into Denver and take a cab to Pikes would have left us utterly unprepared for this particular mountain.

Our first taste of the atmosphere came at 3:00 am on Friday as we wound up the dark landscape with Chris Nazarenus of MyLifeAtSpeed.com. She and her team were there capturing the event, often from the point of view of six-time Pikes Peak winner Greg Tracy. We divided and conquered, splitting off to cover several sections of the mountain for a practice session that would begin at dawn.

Adam overcame the altitude woozies to nail some great shots of the bikes as they made multiple runs on the middle section of the mountain. It's hard to describe the contrast of the beautiful landscape with the near violence of high-strung engines in full primal scream. I was perched on a snowbank where I could see the cars practicing on the lower sections and the bikes above.

I did as I was directed and drank lots of water and took very small steps as I snapped photos and searched for a cell signal. Why, I wondered, wasn't the signal better when I was so high up? Who knows, maybe the other 5,000 vertical feet of mountain above me was in the way.

It took no time for me to understand the magnitude of racing at Pikes Peak. During a practice run one rider passed another on the narrow strip of asphalt between the white edge line of the road and the dirt shoulder. Maybe it was Greg. He was on a Ducati, but he was simply going too fast to be identified. What I could tell, though, is that had he gone over the edge, the rider would not have stopped falling for a good long while. In poker terms, these guys and girls go all-in on every hand it seems.

Jump to Sunday at 2:30 am. We headed to the summit to begin a day of what felt more like survival than work or pleasure. The wind was constant and strong enough to knock any non-goat off its chosen path. I've never been seasick, but I think I can relate to it now. There was a noticeable lack of oxygen a mile or so below us. At 14,100 feet, it was nearly incapacitating. Especially after 17 hours.

We set up Adam's photo gear, including a big soft light that acted like a sail in the wind. Scratch that. It acted like a sack of Tasmanian Devils. Luckily we found a shielded nook behind a stone wall attached to a steel building at the summit. What building? The U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine — Altitude Research Facility. What else?

It's hard to describe this day without sounding negative. But in reality, I think we all realized that we were experiencing something remarkable and epic. Even now — only a week later — it's a fond memory. But at the time, though, we seemed to slip into a drunken delirious state where we survived by saying whatever popped into our heads. I definitely hallucinated once. It defies explanation how Adam managed to get 50-some amazing portraits of drivers as they finished their death-defying runs. But he did.

Delays ruled the day, but at long last, we were set to see what we came for — the motorcycles, specifically the vintage bikes and the big Ducatis. More specifically, our buddy Greg Tracy and his teammate Alexander Smith. And so we stumbled down to the hairpin that precedes the finish line to watch and wait.

The mood was light even as we heard ominous words like "Medivac" and "injuries" over various radios. The crowd at our perch thinned out. A hundred bikes or so passed by until eventually, Adam, Ricky and I were the only ones left watching. The safety car swept the course. And still no sign of 555.

Somewhere between the start and the finish, Greg Tracy and his blindingly quick Multistrada had simply disappeared. 

Now we really felt sick.

(Photos: Adam Ewing)