No more offroad sections will appear at the 2012 Pikes Peak as the Hillclimb event makes way to pressure for a safer course. The 90th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb will see the last part of the dirt track paved, between miles 10 and 13, so that the race will be a fully paved one for the first time.

Although there are still a number of stretches not for the faint of heart, the mountain will now have all asphalt as well as additional guardrails on some of the particularly dangerous corners. Pikes Peaks may become safer, but it certainly won’t have the same legendary rally aspect of past years.

With records being made and broken as the Hillclimb becomes faster, we will definitely get a more road racing flavour over the races to come, but the missing dirt element will be missed by the purists. In the video above you can see what the additional paved sections mean as Jeff Zwart breaks a record in his Porsche 911 GT2 RS.

Source | Asphalt&Rubber

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Jeff Zwart is the kind of guy you want to buy your supercar if you’re a manufacturer. Spending money on some of the loveliest and most powerful supercars around, he then races them and what better way for a little publicity? In this video we see him drive 1,800 km from California all the way to the base of Pikes Peak for the annual event. The Porsche 911 GT2 RS he does it in is an unlikely vehicle for an American road tour, but it matches the scenery nicely anyway.

Last year Zwart drove a 911 GT3 Cup at Pikes Peak, dominating the two-wheel drive category. This time, when using the GT2 RS in the Time Attack 2WD category, he came second, three seconds behind Rod Millen at the wheel of the RMR Hyundai-powered PM580. Check out his adventure across the American landscape before the race in the video above.

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This is like no Dacia Duster we’ve seen before. The Duster No Limit rally car is a nasty version of the low-cost SUV, created specifically so that Dacia, or rather Tork Engineering, can tackle the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The car was built with the help of Renault Sport Technologies, but this time the Duster is equipped with the VR 38 DETT engine from the Nissan GT-R.

Obviously to make the Duster a rally goer, it gets heaps of updates, including a tubular chassis built to hold a lightweight body made from composite materials including fibre glass, and a very visible rear wing. As to the engine the 3.8-litre V6 normally produces 530 hp, but has been tuned up to 850 hp.

That could be matched to significant torque so the Duster can meet the mountain - apparently we could be looking at about 900 Nm. A six-speed Sadev transmission completes the technical profile, along with a weight which is estimated to be about 950 kg. The Dacia Duster No Limit will be driven by Jean-Philippe Dayraut.

Dacia Duster No Limit rally car

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I have abandoned any ambitions I may have had to becoming a rally car driver on seeing this video of the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup attack Pike Peaks in the legendary race. The GT3 Cup, driven by Jeff Zwart, set the best time in the 2WD Time Attack class of 11′31″095. Pikes Peak victory, though, remains with Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima who has won on previous occasions and holds the all-time record of 10′01″408 achieved in 2007.

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