Just sit down a minute. Because this next bit of information may be hard to imagine.
Race car driver Robert Prilika has traded in the Porsche GT3 Cup car, Corvette ZR1 and Shelby GT500 Signature Edition (driven last year) for a 2023 Shelby F-150 Super Snake Sport in next weekend’s 2023 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, also known as The Race to the Clouds.
You read that correctly: A pickup truck, modified with more power, handling and style, will be taking 156 turns in the 12.42 mile race on the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Pike National Forest, west of Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“I’ve never driven a truck in any kind of racing,” Prilika told the Detroit Free Press. “Shelby wants me to drive a truck because that’s the main core of their business now. I’ve driven trucks all my life but never raced one. So it’s kind of a new experience for me.”
Safety gear has been added, including a fire extinguisher, racing seat, belts and a roll cage — plus a “cut-off switch” that kills the power to the fuel pump, ignition and electrical circuits in case of emergency, Prilika said. “Today, we have to go to tech and actually check all those things to make sure we’re within the rules to run the mountain.”
While drivers shoot for a 10-minute finish, Prilika is shooting for 13 to 14 minutes, because the truck is heavier and sits higher. The elevation gain is 4,725 feet. For comparison, the Empire State Building is 1,454 feet tall.
Prilika started driving Shelby vehicles in 2022. The F-150 truck is sponsored by Tuscany West, which distributes Shelby muscle trucks and cars. Shelby engineers observe performance to improve features in the future.
The F-150 will be competing in the Exhibition Division against a dozen others from France, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. They’re driving everything from a 1949 Ford F1 and Tesla Model S Plaid to a 1996 Fabcar Porsche 911 and an all-electric 2021 Rivian RT. There will be six divisions totaling 67 vehicles, according to the registration list.
‘Sheer drop-offs’
“We’re racing up one of the highest peaks in the country at 14,115 feet (above sea level),” he said. “It’s a two-lane road and the speed limit is (usually) 25 miles per hour. We’re going in excess of 100 miles an hour. There’s sheer drop-offs with no guardrails. If you’re afraid of heights, well … “
Prilika usually finishes his races but he has wrecked. One crash happened in a Porsche in 2018 at a place called the bottomless pit because it goes almost straight down, he said. “You could jump off there and take a parachute down.”
His left front tire went flat and he didn’t realize what had happened while driving 100 mph, he said. “I went to turn right and the car went straight and hit a knee-high wall. That’s all that protects you from going over. It was quite an experience.”
‘Nobody else does that’
This year, Prilika will be racing a street truck while other competitors will be racing race cars. “This is a car that has a license plate on it and drives on the street. It’ll drive there and drive home. Nobody else does that there,” he said.
This week, the 61-year-old business lawyer from Larkspur, Colorado, will be practicing on the mountain along with other drivers. They schedule blocks of time, as the race is run against the clock (instead of wheel to wheel) with staggered interval starts every 3 to 5 minutes.
“We’re going as fast as we can,” he said. “We start practicing on Tuesday and practice until Thursday and we’re ready for the race on Sunday. We actually practice on Pikes Peak, so we get there basically at 4 a.m. and practice from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. Then we’re off the mountain. Other competitors are there at the same time.”
In 2017, he won his class of 75 or so competitors. Prilika usually makes the podium. In 2016, he placed third instead of winning because he needed to pass another racer on the mountain and it slowed him up too much, he said. Conditions can be treacherous.
‘Raining and snowing and foggy’
“Last year, it was raining and snowing and foggy. The cloud never left the top of the mountain. You couldn’t see where you were going,” Prilika said. “The weather plays such a big role up there. You could have a sunny morning and by afternoon it’s raining or snowing. The race starts at 7:30 a.m. and runs until the last car goes, sometimes at 4 or 5 o’clock. We’re going as fast as we can.”
On Sunday, drivers will arrive about 3 a.m. to be ready to start at 7:30 a.m. An estimated 35,000 people attend, and it’s sold out again this year. “The crowds are so big,” said Prilika, who doesn’t eat on race days to avoid any potential complications. He’ll be wearing a fire suit with fire-resistant long underwear, a helmet and gloves.
Thriving Shelby F-150 sales
Gary Patterson, president of Shelby American, told the Free Press he’ll be among many spectators on-site in Colorado to watch Prilika as part of the company’s Centennial Celebration of Carroll Shelby, the son of a mail carrier in rural east Texas who struggled financially much of his life yet left a global legacy as an expert in car design, engineering and racing.
“Pikes Peak is its own unique animal,” said Patterson, who lives in Newport, Michigan, and works for Shelby American in Las Vegas. “Carroll Shelby did 1,500 performance trucks in 1989 with Dodge Chrysler. He did Shelby versions of the Dodge Dakota, and he put a Viper engine in a ’93 Dodge pickup truck. The fact that we’re in trucks should be no surprise to anybody. We got back into trucks in 2013, and it’s probably 75% of what we do now.”
‘Soul of a sports car’
Shelby American, a wholly owned subsidiary of Carroll Shelby International Inc., based in Las Vegas, manufactures and markets performance vehicles in partnership with Ford Motor Co. Its vehicles are sold through Shelby and Tuscany dealers. This two-door Shelby Super Snake Sport F-150 features a Shelby-specific lowered suspension, a V-8 engine and up to 775-horsepower with a supercharger. The Shelby Super Snake has four doors.
“The Shelby Super Snake Sport F-150 combines the versatility of a truck with the soul of a sports car,” Vince LaViolette, Shelby American vice president of operations, said in a news release. “The roar of the supercharged engine is a clue that the four-wheel drive truck can sprint 0-60 mph in just 3.45 seconds and go from 0-100-0 in 8.3 seconds. The blistering fast truck also handles and stops exceptionally well. The Hill Climb will be a great test for it, and I can’t wait to watch the truck in the hands of such a skilled, proven driver.”
Kash Singh, Shelby American sales and marketing manager, competed in the past with his own 2005 Ford Mustang. Now he’s entered in the Pikes Peak Open Division with his own 2017 Ford Mustang GT, racing against 14 competitors from France, Slovakia, Japan and the U.S. in a wide range of vehicles, including a 2017 E-Motion Porsche GT3R TT, a 1991 Chevrolet IROC Camaro, a 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302S and a 1994 Ford Bronco.
“The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has long served as an automotive proving ground,” said Melissa Eickhoff, executive director of the event, in a news release. “Carroll Shelby was certainly an automotive visionary and we’re eager to see how the latest iteration of Shelby-engineering will perform.”
Pikes Peak racers compete by invitation only. Many are professionals. Prilika, who was inducted into the Colorado Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2019, heads back to the law office when he’s done, where he writes contracts for clients in the offseason.
And Pikes Peak will reopen to train passengers, walkers, cyclists and slow-driving tourists.
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Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.