When the flag drops, the bullshit stops. This is race day, told from Rennie’s mind
Race day. The only day that matters. A year’s worth of planning and preparation, crunched into a run measuring the best part of 10-and-a-half minutes.
I’d never felt pressure before when I raced. Indeed, I’d never raced in anything warranting the presence of genuine pressure. This race was different.
After qualifying on pole position, I’d suddenly gone from thinking a podium was the outside best I could hope for to being in the position where I genuinely thought I could win. The KTM Super Duke felt like it was on rails in qualifying. Every input felt easy, smooth, exactly what you want your bike to feel like. On race day, it was the same bike, but I felt different.
To read Big Wave Racing part one, click HERE
I hardly slept the night before, maybe two hours of real sleep, tops. I woke at 12:00 a.m. and got to the track at 1:30 a.m., joined the conga line of cars at the mountain’s entry, and, with KTM’s Tom Moen, my wife, Annabelle, my parents who had made the trip out from Australia and Jon, Danielle and Patrick from Next Moto Champion, waited to be escorted to the pits.
I’d purchased a blow-up mattress to sleep on in the back of the U-Haul but it only served as a place for me to think about the race horizontally, rather than gain any extra sleep.
The bike was ready. New Pirelli SC1 slick tires, a quick rag clean and a fresh tank of gas; that was all that was needed. Turnkey race bike. The best kind of race bike.
By 6:30 a.m., it was pandemonium in the Pikes Peak pits. The paddock was full of racers, spectators, machines and officials, turning what was a sleepy little mountain into the world’s most bustling racetrack. The whole scene felt surreal.
At 7:00 a.m., there’s a bus that leaves the pits to take a few of the racers’ personal belongings (wallets, phones, change of pants, etc.) to the Summit. And I totally forgot about it. Rushing to get my bag to the waiting bus, I twice ran the length of pit lane at 9000-foot elevation, only to find the bus driver decided to leave and my belongings were stuck in the paddock. The running absolutely knackered me. I felt like I’d just sprinted two miles, and oddly I became a touch nervous. It took over an hour to bring my heart rate down to a normal level, me sucking on oxygen and backing down water, just trying to feel normal again.
Tom was his usual chilled-out self. I suspect this man would be calm in the presence of a warzone, and his easy influence was thoroughly welcomed. He was looking after the bike, and that was the main thing.
The KTM was absolutely on point for the whole race, and looked the business, too.
Grid Up
For 2016, the organizers created the Ducati Hot Grid, a section where the 20 riders waiting to take the flag could pit with tire warmers and chairs, rather than wait in the paddock with dirt and mud on their tires. Wheeling the KTM into this section, I was pitted alongside Kawasaki’s Bruno Langlois, and aside from a quick handshake and a “good luck,” we never again spoke to each other.
The race start was delayed a half-hour due to the mountain seeing a dumping of snow overnight. I was warned by many a competitor that the course would be different to how it was in practice, but nothing could prepare me for what lay ahead. The final two miles were completely waterlogged. Cycle World’s Don Canet got the worst of it. As the fastest electric bike, he was the very first rider to set off, copping all the water and snow as it melted down the mountain. I really felt for Don, because he was the fastest rider there across the entire course, despite what qualifying said, and had he had the conditions I raced in, I have no doubt he’d have been the race winner. But I figured by the time I set off, the track would have dried significantly enough to post a fast time.
The classes were rattling off nicely. Pikes Peak Challenge Electric, Exhibition, Lightweight and Middleweight, they all seemed to be running relatively smoothly.
Then, another red flag.
Connor Tonner, the young Scottish lad one half of the father-and-son team entered in the Middleweight division, hit trouble at Elk Park. In fact, he hit more than trouble. Conner had gone off the edge after hitting the guardrail, he and his Aprilia SXV550 tumbling down into the rocky abyss below.
I didn’t know who had crashed. All I knew was the air ambulance had been deployed. That alone tells you it’s serious.
There was another Middleweight class rider scheduled to take the start before me, but for one reason or other the organizers decided to run him last and put the Heavyweights on show. Meaning I was up.
As the run progressed, the cold conditions made the surface ultra-slippery.
Game Time
To be honest, I don’t really remember heading through the throngs of people and well-wishers to the start line. What I do remember is feeling ready, as ready as I’d ever be. I’d relaxed, the heart rate had gone down and I thought I could do it.
The next four minutes were not ideal. And what I wouldn’t give for a pit board. The run to Glen Cove, where I’d been so dominant in qualifying, felt completely off. I think in the entire first sector, I hit about 50 percent of the apexes. And what people were telling me about the track changing was already coming true. The Pirelli SC1s that had been near perfect in qualifying were not gripping and the KTM was snaking all over a track. I’d never experienced anything like it.
By Glen Cove, I thought the last sector was such a mess that I had to be behind in the times. I figured I had to push, and push hard.
Little did I know, I was in front by five seconds.
Coming into the decreasing radius left at Cove Creek, I got the entry, middle and exit spot on. The KTM fired up the hill, noticeably faster than any time in practice beforehand. There was also the added factor of no sunlight blinding me through the right-hander on the run to Elk Park, and I knew with the right line I could take it flat out in fourth. So I did.
But I didn’t adjust my braking marker.
I spotted my old marker, hit the anchors and realized I was in too hot. The back-end immediately came off the ground and pitched sideways, but I had enough control that I figured I could rebound it off the hay bales and back onto the track. But I was still going too fast. I ended up cutting between the hay bales and the Armco barriers, smacking the steel side-on and getting pitched over the fence onto the waiting cliff ledge. There was a level piece of ground there, maybe a yard wide, where I landed. Beyond that was just thin mountain air. That was luck of the best kind. The bike never fell over, instead it just stuttered to a stall between the hay and Armco. I was back on my feet instantly, over the Armco and back in the saddle. I knew the race was lost but I tried not to think about it as the KTM started and stalled immediately—it was still in fourth gear! I finally got it going again, gunned it towards the scary left-hander of Ragged Edge, and felt my heart hit my feet.
Lose the front here, and the result is obvious.
The Remainder
I only really remember one more part of that run, that being when I missed three marmots camping out on the apex of the left-hand, blind, fourth-gear heart-stopper on the run to Bottomless Pit. As I pitched the KTM in at about 120 mph, those little bastards were right on my line. I knew if I lifted I was going off the cliff, and if they moved and I hit them, I was going off the cliff. So I just held my line, held my breath, and hoped.
Luckily, unlike a deer, they didn’t startle. Didn’t even move. By sheer dumb luck, I missed them by about three inches, cranked over in fourth gear on the side of a mountain.
Crossing the finish line a very lucky man, but also somewhat deflated.
I completed the rest of the run, coasted over the finish line, and screamed in my helmet. The crash lost me about 23 seconds, and I lost the race by 15. I’d never been so mad, never felt such intense, personal rage.
Taking off my helmet was a moment I’ll never forget. I was lucky to be even standing there after my crash, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. All I felt was failure. But that was to change about 10 minutes later, as I realized how much of a selfish asshole I’d been when I saw Connor’s dad, Joseph.
When I saw that man, sitting in the café with a look of unimaginable anguish on his face, any feeling of sorrow I had for myself was rendered totally and completely irrelevant. Here was a man whose world was caving in on him right in front of my eyes. He didn’t know of his son’s condition, all he knew was Connor was badly hurt, and in those times the mind can’t help but wonder to the worst.
Race winner Bruno Langlois (center) is flanked by second-placed Rennie (right) and third-placed Shane Scott (left) in the Heavyweight division.
Myself, race winner Bruno, Aprilia rider Kevin Heil, and race administrator Nick Razzano tried to console an inconsolable man. Eventually, Joseph was put on the train that takes tourists from the Summit back to Manitou Springs, where he was taken to the Primrose Hospital to be with Connor. As I write this, Connor is out of a five-day intensive care stay, his overall condition now stable, with head and neck injuries that at this stage, look like he’ll be able to recover from.
If I thought that was to be the end of the drama—it wasn’t.
The disappointment was hard to describe, but we’ll be back—bet on that.
The race never got to run its full course. Crashes and weather conspired to make the 100th Anniversary of the race a 95 percent start event. Sitting in the café after about six hours of waiting, we were told the final competitors were nearing the Summit and we should head to our machines.
Everyone did so, then another red flag. And a full-scale blizzard.
The top of the mountain was under a foot of snow in about 15 minutes. It was yet another first in a day of firsts for me, and negotiating the mountain in the opposite direction, under a blanket of snow with stone cold slick tires, wasn’t a lot of fun.
The crowd was incredible. It was a good half-hour of slapping hands with the fans as we slowly made our way back to the pits, and that made me feel a bit better.
Done With… For Now
The result of fourth place overall, second in the Heavyweight class and 2016 Rookie of the Year has only hardened my resolve to get back to Pikes Peak and complete the race properly. Failing at something I know I can do is one thing that drives me nuts, so plans are already in place to right the wrong of 2016.
Despite the result, racing Pikes Peak was the most exhilarating, life-affirming thing I’ve ever done. Everything about the place makes you glad to be alive, to be able to experience it and take it in. That’s what’s good about tough endeavors—they make you all the more appreciative of everything in your life, and make you want to do better.
I’ll be back, you can bet on that.
This project could not have been possible without a great many partners, all of whom displayed the enthusiasm and drive to see this thing to the end like real racers.
KTM North America is one such company. They said yes to absolutely everything we asked, and pushed us to better ourselves at every given opportunity. Without them, there was no Pikes Peak 2016, and I am forever grateful to Tom Moen for his help and friendship prior, during and after the event.
Pirelli Tire North America supplied tons of tires for us to burn through, and gave us information at every turn. The rubber was absolutely outstanding, and even though the grip wasn’t quite there on race day, it was nothing to do with Pirelli, simply the conditions of racing a motorcycle on a frozen mountain.
Heath Cofran at Alpinestars was another who moved mountains to get me in that incredible custom KTM-branded race suit. Wearing that suit for the first time was a special moment, and I was stoked to be representing the brand at Pikes Peak.
SP Gadgets supplied a heap of GoPro accessories for the films that dotted our Facebook page, Drive Systems in Huntington Beach did great work for us in getting some gearing fast-tracked to Colorado Springs, Airtech Streamlining supplied a one-off belly pan and LITPro helped us at the last minute with a GPS training device that helped shave precious seconds from the run.
Apex Sports in Colorado Springs deserve special mention. Erik Peat, a man who didn’t know me at all prior to race week, helped out at any given opportunity, including getting up at 1:30 a.m. to help me for the first two days of practice. Thanks mate.
And thank you as well to all the crew from Next Moto Champion who came along and compiled the fantastic feature video on the event—the work you guys do is outstanding.
To everyone that helped out, thank you so much for being a part of the journey of Pikes Peak 2016.
Check out this awesome video from the crew at Next Moto Champion who were part of our posse for the race. Warning: it’s riveting watching! (Video by Next Moto Champion)
