Optima is backing production cars, EVs, and a V8-powered BMW E36.
Optima Batteries will make a splash at the 101st running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), with its various battery products powering an array of competitors, in some way or another.
The company will provide Optima Orangetop lithium batteries to several cars, and they're all pretty amazing in some way. The Rivian R1T is the only standard vehicle, but it takes two of these batteries and will use another Optima product. This electric truck will be charged by a portable Optima Power Station between runs and will be piloted by Gardner Nichols, a Pikes Peak rookie. Nichols has little experience on the treacherous hill climb but has served as a test driver for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (now part of Stellantis) and currently works as Rivian's senior performance test engineer.
Now that we've talked about the only electric Optima entrant, let's look at the more exciting builds.
Radford 62-2 Pikes Peak
Tanner Foust will be at the helm of the one-off Radford 62-2 Pikes Peak, which builds on the 600-horsepower, 2,400-pound recipe of the regular 62-2 and gives it another 110 hp while removing some 400 lbs of weight. The H-pattern manual shifter is also swapped out for a paddle-shifted sequential transmission, helping achieve 0-60 mph in 2.2 seconds with a top speed of 160 mph. For the record, the road car takes 2.9 seconds to 60 but goes on to 181 mph.
We try not to be biased, but this may be one of the most attractive bewinged cars to take on the mountain this year.
Wolf TSC-FS Open-Wheeler
Another entrant worth keeping an eye on is the Wolf TSC-FS open-wheeler to be piloted by Robin Shute. He won the event in 2019, 2021, and 2022, becoming the first British driver to do so. What makes his feats all the more remarkable is that he has only lived in the US since 2011 and first visited the hill in 2017. He'll be chasing his fourth King of the Hill title with roughly 600 hp at his disposal in a car weighing roughly 1,142 lbs.
The late Ken Block will be represented in spirit in this class by his wife, Lucy, but she's driving a totally different sort of open-wheeler that looks more suited to dune bashing than time attack racing.
BMW M8
Then we have Rhys Millen, who is a two-time PPIHC winner and the holder of two Bentley records at the hill. In 2019, he set the fastest time in a production car while driving a Bentley Continental GT, and that was after he had done the same thing in a Bentley Bentayga to take the production SUV record in 2018. This year, he's in a stock car again, specifically a BMW M8, but since he's so handy in production cars, this could be one to watch out for. He's aiming for a new production car record and says that, in testing, the M8 is already some six seconds quicker than expected.
2023 will be the 50-year-old's 27th Race to the Clouds. Something tells us he likes this course.
E36 BMW 3 Series “Bergsteiger”
Finally, there's James Clay in his fifth PPIHC. He's driving the BimmerWorld E36 BMW 3 Series dubbed “Bergsteiger,” which translates as mountaineer. The car was supposed to be powered by the 3.0-liter straight-six turbocharged N64 engine with a target power output of 900 hp, but then BimmerWorld realized that the 4.4-liter twin-turbo S63TU engine from the F13 BMW M6 made 700 hp with just a flash tune. Long story short, BimmerWorld sourced a P63 engine (the racing version of the S63) and has come up with a powerful, lightweight, aero-intensive racer that should be just as fun to drive as it is to listen to.
The 101st Pikes Peak International Hill Climb takes place on Sunday, 25 June.
Keyword: 5 Epic Pikes Peak Racing Entries Could Not Be More Different