Shute is smitten
with the nature
of Pikes PeakALL^ PICS:^ N
ATHAN^ LEACH- P
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ER25 JULY 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 71FINISHING STRAIGHTINTERVIEWEarlier this month, an expat based on the US west coast became
the first Brit to win the Pikes Peak hillclimb. This is his story
DAVID EVANSSHUTE FOR THE STARS
welve months ago, Romain
Dumas stood at the top of a
mountain after demolishing
the record for the Pikes Peak
International Hillclimb.
Volkswagen’s all-electric I.D. R signalled a
new era for the motorsport world’s most
famous hill and, apparently, the death of
internal combustion in this competition.
Robin Shute must have missed that
memo. Late last month, he became the
first British driver to win Pikes Peak and,
with that maiden success nailed, he’s got
his eye on the biggest prize in Colorado
Springs. He wants the record and he wants
to make some noise along the way. “I still
think it’s possible to break the record with
gasoline,” says Shute, his years on the US’s
west coast telling in his turn of phrase.
Looking at the numbers, Shute’s got
a big gap to bridge. Dumas topped the
mountain in 7m57.148s, while the best
Brit on the mountain managed 9m12.476s.
In a shade over 12 miles, 75s is a chunk –
it’s a fraction more than half a second
through each of the 156 corners.
In his defence, Shute struggled with
a worsening misfire through his run and
a noticeably bumpier run-in to the finish
caused by the permafrost of a heavy winter
corrugating the surface. Not that Shute was
terribly aware of this – he only managed
one practice run at the top section.
“We had a few problems in the run-up
to the event,” he says. “We didn’t get much
time testing at the top of the hill, we had
some misfire issues which we traced to a
closed-loop fuelling issue that eventually
fouled the plugs. Added to that, we had
some weather coming in which didn’t help.
Qualifying went really well though, and
after that the target was an 8m30s run.
But then we got the misfire.”
This was only Shute third’s shot at Pikes
Peak, so to have made history and become
the first Briton to win is impressive. But
he’s sure there’s more to come.
“We used the same engine that Romain
had in his car before he went with the
I.D. R,” says Shute. “It’s the Honda K20
with a big turbo on. We were faster up the
mountain than him with that engine. And
we’ve got a lot more to come. Right now the
focus is on finding sponsorship so we can
have an engineer working full-time on the
car. Once we’re there, I think we can have
a go at the record. I think it’s beatable.”
The numbers that give rise to such
confidence are based around the power and
weight of his car compared with the VW.
Dumas may have had an extra 170bhp, but
the I.D. R weighed almost twice as much as
Shute’s Wolf GB08 chassis. “So much of“I LOVE THAT YOU CAN
BUILD SOME KIND OF
CRAZY CAR, BRING IT
ALONG AND RACE IT”
T
the performance is based around mass,”
says Shute, “but we understand the maths
and the physics of what’s needed to get
the car up the hill.”
Shute’s team is made up of his mates.
Fortunately they all work at the cutting
edge of design and engineering in,
ironically, electric vehicle technology. “I’m
in a very privileged position to have these
guys around me,” Shute adds. “We have the
ability to go for that record and we haven’t
unleashed the full potential of this car yet.
But what we need now is the backing.
“This event has completely caught me.
I love the fact that you can build some
kind of crazy car, bring it along and race it.
I grew up watching F1 and the WRC with
my father [long-time Lotus engineer Tony
Shute]; what we have now is a car similar,
in performance terms, to a 1990s F1 car
that runs on a stage alongside Group B cars.
That’s what I love about Pikes Peak.”Cookin’ on
gas: Shute
reckons petrol
power can still
triumph