The finish line was moved down to Glen Cove, at one-third of the way up the 156-turn, 12.42-mile course. It was the fourth time since 2017 that weather conditions have shortened the historic race up the Colorado mountain.
Although he finished 25th, the only Australian in the 71 competitors, Brett Dickie was disappointed with the race day.
“It wasn’t a great day,” he said.
“We worked so hard to set the car up for every section during practice week. To the point that we compromised the setup on the bottom section to make the car happy over the bumps in the top section, as the road has deteriorated significantly since 2024.”
After snow during the week, last Sunday was under perfect clear blue skies. But just after Glen Coe on the climb, there were continuing 80mph (130kph) wind gusts.
There were concerns for all the cars with large aero, along with the safety of the spectators. Camp sites were blown off the mountain as well as most of the amenities, including portable restrooms and rocks were dislodged off of the cliff faces.
It was Dickie’s fourth attempt at the famous event which involves four days of practice and qualifying, on the three sections of the course.
His Toyo Tyres-backed 2.0-litre turbocharged Project Import Honda S2000 had a drama with the six-speed paddle shift gearbox, which hampered the team’s qualifying run.
The shortened event was won by Italian Simone Faggioli in a Nova Proto NP01Bardahl. He was 5.1 seconds quicker than Romain in the Super Mustang Mach-E.
Dickie now sets his sights on returning in 2026 for a fifth attempt if he can get the funding.
Discussion about this post