Photo: Kawasaki USA
One racer is dead and another has grabbed Carlin Dunne’s crown after this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
Carlin Dunne won the 2011 and 2012 Pikes Peak race on a Ducati Multistrada, and won again in 2013 on an electric motorcycle from Lightning. But for 2014, the winner is Jeremy Toye on a Kawasaki ZX-10R, with Fabrice Lambert in second and Don Canet (of Cycle World magazine) in third, both on Ducatis.
Toye’s time was 9:58:7; he was the only rider under 10 minutes.
Guy Martin managed an 11:32:6 time, which put him pretty far down the rankings; supposedly, bike troubles held him back, and it was his first time at Pikes Peak. Martin was racing a homebrewed musclebike powered by a turbocharged GSX-R1100 motor.
The darkest point of this year’s race came when Bobby Goodin, racing in the middleweight class on a Triumph 675R, crashed and died after the race. Reports say Goodin lost control of his motorcycle in a gravel parking lot after crossing the finish line. It’s the first time a motorcycle racer has died at Pikes Peak since 1982.
Goodin was from Flower Mound, Texas.
One of the weekend’s most impressive rides was Mike Ryan’s time on a Triumph Explorer 1200 that was right off a showroom floor. Ryan hadn’t raced a motorcycle in 17 years (his last two-wheeled race was at Pikes Peak, before it was paved). Ryan had showed up at Pikes Peak to race a modified Freightliner truck, and walked away from a 60 mph crash that put him over the side of a cliff. It smashed his truck up enough that it couldn’t race.
Organizers told Ryan he could switch classes, and he took the motorcycle instead. He finished pretty close to the back of the pack, but that kind of grit is still impressive.
