Rhys Millen wins at Pikes Peak, Monster Tajima second

This year’s fight for the win at International Pikes Peak Hillclimb was a clash of ultra-powered electric race cars – Rhys Millen in Latvian-built Drive eO PP03 against Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima in Croatian-built Tajima Rimac E-Runner Concept_One. For both of them the goal was to improve electric vehicle record time and to achieve overall win.

Winner of the race was Newzealander Millen with new record time 9.07.222 minutes, about a second faster than previous record set by Greg Tracy’s electric Mitsubishi. Millen’s victory is the first overall win for electric car at Pikes Peak.

Legend of Pikes Peak and nine-time winner Nobuhiro Tajima was much slower than Millen but at least he succeeded in attempt to break his own record. With new record time 9.32.401 Tajima yesterday celebrated 65th birthday. Tajima was at the wheel of 1.1 megawat (1475 hp) E-Runner Concept-One, while Millen had a 1367 hp in Drive eO PP03.