By Colin Wood
Jun 15, 2022
Think you need a million-dollar race machine and a high-tech garage to be competitive at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb? Tim Hardy–one of only 25 competitors in history to complete the climb in under 10 minutes–proves otherwise.
An underdog among the grid, Hardy has no corporate sponsors nor iconic races under his belt, just a highly-modified 1987 E30 BMW he bought in 2011 for $460.
6/14/22 2:20 p.m.
Bravo! Well done. It's amazing how fast you are in a rear wheel-drive door-slammer.
All the best,
6/14/22 2:34 p.m.
Paving it must have made it A WHOLE BUNCH faster. When I used to go watch in the 90's, they weren't sure 10 minutes would ever be broken. Rod Millen claimed he'd be the first. I'm not sure who was actually. I stopped following.
6/15/22 11:37 a.m.
Oh yeah, paving the road totally lowered times.
6/15/22 11:43 a.m.
what a bad motherberkeleyer!
6/15/22 11:54 a.m.
Paving it definitely made it faster and it changed the driving styles. It's still a spectacular event to see and the higher speeds make it...gulp.
Rod Millen didn't break the 10 minute barrier first. His son Rhys Millen came within 10 seconds of it, but it was Monster Tajima that did the job in 2011. Note that it was not fully paved at that point. Rally legend Sebastien Loeb beat the 9 minute mark for the first time and destroyed the previous record by nearly 90 seconds in 2013. Romain Dumas has the record of 7:57.148 in an electric VW. Last year was a shortened course, unfortunately.
6/16/22 11:05 a.m.
Watching the video–and even though that's "just an E30"–made me gulp a few times. (I admit, I'm not into heights.)
6/16/22 12:15 p.m.
I saw the title and knew it was about Tim. Cool dude too.
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