My palms are getting quite sweaty about now. I’m rocketing up the road to the top of Pikes Peak, which was built in 1915 to promote tourism in the area and bring the wealthy to Spenser Penrose’s new hotel, the Broadmoor. Doesn’t matter that I started racing cars at twenty, and used to rockclimb. At the moment, the pucker-factor is almost as high as I am. The surface is loose gravel, and though the Mitsubishi Evolution MR is doing its level best to keep me from plummeting off into space, I can’t keep the glands from doing their thing.

For a few days a year, this road serves as the course for America’s second oldest car race. Today, the 2000ft drops that accompany many of its 156 corners are keeping me completely focused. The road continuously changes: asphalt, hardpack dirt, deep and loose ruts, snow and ice. Site lines range from open to non-existent. Just where you’d think there’s room to give it the gun, your (or mine, at least) guts run out, as you note there’s nothing but blue sky beyond the jagged edge.

The competitors for the Pikes Peak trophies are required to have King Kong cajones, though a sense of self-preservation is optional. Everywhere but in the U.S., this romp through the clouds is regarded as one of the great tests of man and machine. It has classes that range from prosaic street-legal cars, trucks, and motorcycles, to the most bizarre and outrageous customs. Unlimited-class monsters with airplane-sized wings and mega power have traded the record with rally-based cars like the Evo I’m piloting.

Currently that record stands at 10:04.06. I try to imagine it; 12.4 miles, on a variable surface, no safety net; at an average speed of more than a buck-twenty. And I have even more respect for the first winner, who did it in just over twenty-three minutes, almost a hundred years ago, with no safety equipment and cable-operated brakes.

Conscious of the tourists I’m sharing road space with, I limit the number of times I let the Evo off the leash. Yet even restraining myself, I can’t help but be amazed at how thrilling it all is from behind the wheel. The turbo boost builds up, and whoosh! I’m catapulted towards the next higher corner, all four wheels digging trenches and spitting stones, the car at an acute angle to its course, my face split by a huge grin. Half the time I’m looking out a side window, correcting the beautiful powerslides and setting up for the next bend. And in the background, heard between the turbo’s zings and belches, and the stones clattering off the Evo’s belly, is the little voice going, “I’m too young to die!”

That’s not a sentiment the winners would or could share, of course. I’ve seen the race from a spot near the finish a few times, and I remember the thrill of watching the talented amateurs and true pros as they used every inch of surface—damn the dropoffs!—to save precious time. Braking at the last possible second, foot to the floorboard as soon as the drive wheels would hook up; all for the glory. Gusto and passion, shared in some measure by the fans braving the high winds and crazy weather, all to witness the dance on the edge of the abyss so beloved of motorsports enthusiasts. No PR flacks or barriers holding back drivers and admirers, camaraderie amongst competitors based on a sense of shared accomplishment: them against the mountain. If you haven’t ever been witness to this institution, or it’s been awhile, you owe yourself the experience on July 1st this year.

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