Ducati built a lot of hype before this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and they backed it up on Sunday when they took home a class victory with the Multistrada and set a new course time record for motorcycles.
Ducati started their build-up towards this year’s second consecutive Pikes Peak victory back in March, when they released a special edition Multistrada 1200 S for this year’s Race to the Clouds. But a fresh coat of paint and a few carbon-fiber geegaws weren’t the difference-maker yesterday; it was Carlin Dunne, owner of Ducati Santa Barbara in California, who took the race in a record 11:11.32, faster than any other motorcycle in the race’s decades-long history.
Dunne’s record-setting ride will probably go down in motorcycle history. Why? Dunne didn’t even run the race on a special factory bike; he set the new record on his shop’s showroom demo machine. He took the pole position in qualifying runs, then grabbed the holeshot right off the start of the race, and never looked back on his way to setting the record – not a bad performance for a Pikes Peak rookie who started prepping his bike frantically only three weeks before the event.
