Imagine racing a pickup truck up a mountain at 110 mph.
Well, Robert Prilika did just that on Sunday on Pikes Peak in Colorado.
He completed the 12.3-mile race course in 13:03 minutes in a 2023 Shelby F-150 Super Snake Sport pickup, so-named because the street pickup truck made by Ford has been up-fitted by Shelby American for more speed, better handling and improved technology.
Prilika raced the pickup for the first time this year in the 2023 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, also known as The Race to the Clouds. Last year, he competed in the Shelby GT SE (Signature Edition) on the two-lane road with steep drop-offs, no rail guards and 156 turns.
“The supercharged Shelby truck performed perfectly,” Prilika said after the race.
“I had a great start and kept driving hard, hitting 110 miles per hour on the straight. That is pretty impressive given the road is rated at 25 miles per hour,” he said. “And even though I drove too deep into a couple of corners, I achieved a best time for a four-wheel-drive truck with a gasoline engine.”
While race car drivers generally shoot for a 10-minute finish on the course, Prilika said before the event, he was hoping to finish within 14 minutes — because the truck is heavier and sits higher. The elevation gain on the course is 4,725 feet. For comparison, the Empire State Building is 1,454 feet tall.
The F-150 competed in the Exhibition Division against a dozen others from France, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. Overall race times and results hadn’t been posted by Monday morning for the nearly 70 competitors.
Gary Patterson, president of Shelby American, waved the green flag before Prilika took off at the starting line.
“The Shelby truck was a rock star,” Patterson told the Free Press. “Everyone was … absolutely blown away when the four-wheel-drive truck exploded off the starting line. With 775 horsepower bellowing up the mountain as it scrambled from zero to 60 in just 3.45 seconds, it made a huge impression on the crowd. The cheers were deafening.”
The Pikes Peak race isn’t without risk. Prilika, who enjoys making the podium, crashed while driving 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.”
Located in Pike National Forest, west of Colorado Springs, the race course runs along the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.
Prilika, 61, is a business lawyer from Larkspur, Colorado, by day. He told the Free Press prior to the race: “I’ve never driven a truck in any kind of racing. 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.”
Patterson called Prilika’s F-150 drive “amazing.”
Vince LaViolette, vice president of production at Shelby American, also attended the race to see how the company can further improve the F-150 performance, Patterson said. “While the truck (performed) flawlessly, we learned valuable lessons that will help make future Shelby vehicles even better.”
Kash Singh, Shelby American sales and marketing manager, competed in the Pikes Peak Open Division against 14 competitors from France, Slovakia, Japan and the U.S with his own 2017 Ford Mustang GT. He ended with a time of 11:54 and felt good even without a medal, he said afterward.
“I came across the finish line overheating, brakes on fire. Not a personal best but drove the snot out of it while trying to nurse the car from about the halfway mark to the summit,” Singh texted. “The temperature spiked and the car was overheating. It was an emotional finish.”
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Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.