The track measures The race is self-sanctioned and has taken place since The first Penrose Trophy was awarded in to Rea Lentz with a time of Following World War Two, Louis Unser returned to his winning ways at Pikes Peak, winning three more times between and ; these wins were tightly contended with rival Al Rogers. In this period the course record was broken every year from until , this is the largest string of record breaking runs in the event's history.
The majority of these records were set by Louis' nephew, Bobby Unser. In the event was won by the first non-gasoline vehicle propane , this was also the first overall victory from the stock car class Ford Mustang , the car was driven by the Danish-American Ak Miller.
Mouton achieved the overall victory and course record of In , an award-winning short film about the event was released by French director Jean-Louis Mourey. The film, titled Climb Dance , captured the efforts of Finnish former World Rally Champion Ari Vatanen , as he won the event in a record-breaking time of 10 minutes and 47 seconds, with his turbocharged Peugeot Turbo The City of Colorado Springs began to pave the highway in after losing a lawsuit against the Sierra Club , which sued on account of erosion damage to streams, reservoirs, vegetation and wetlands downstream from the 1.
During this evolutionary period of the event, the Japanese driver Nobuhiro Tajima with Suzuki cars scored 6 overall victories — and two course records. Hill Climb champion Rod Millen warned at the time that paving the road would put an end to the race. The 90th running of the event happened in and saw a larger field and a longer race day than ever before.
This was the first time the race has been run on all asphalt leading to the breaking of several records, notably the overall record, which fell numerous times during the event finally falling to Rhys Millen , the son of previous event winner Rod Millen , in the Time Attack Division. During the event Mike Ryan spun his big rig in a hairpin in a section called the "W"s, hitting the guard rail, he then managed to execute a three-point turn and continued on course, at which point he broke his old record by 5 seconds.
