This short film of the Peugeot 405 T16 rally car doing a run up Pikes Peak is fantastic. I love the piano intro, the tone of the film stock, and most of all: the driving. Can you imagine what it must feel like to toss a 1,000-bhp rally car around a dirt track just inches away from certain death?
(Thanks, Matt!)
I love this clip. It has been a long time member of my youtube favorites.
Here are two others for your enjoyment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQOnOXXc-ps&feature=PlayList&p=50112052FC7C5CF7&index=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBcapxGHjE&feature=PlayList&p=F8603CB448D34A52&index=0
Having played this track in DiRT i can say that this guy is pretty good, but they cut some of the switchbacks.
“this guy” is 1981 world rally champion Ari Vatanen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Vatanen
I live close about an hour and a half from Pikes Peak, and can’t recommend seeing the yearly Race to the Clouds enough. It’s one of the cooler (and flat-out dangerous) spectacles in motorsport.
Oh yeah, the doughnuts at the gift shop at the top of Pikes peak are to die for. Something about baking at altitude…
What amazed me the most, beyond the amazing skill and huge brass balls of the driver, is how familiar the course felt after playing DiRT. It makes me want to re-create the video in DiRT and put them side-by-side. Unfortunately, I have no skill in such things.
As if racing on dirt at that speed wasn’t already like driving on ice, subtract 20 years of automotive advances and this guy’s driving a rocket with no practical crash safety!
“The HillClimb is the USA’s second oldest motorsport event, behind the Indy 500.”
http://www.rally-america.com/event.pikespeak2005.php
I do so love rally!
I codrive a rally car, and am based in Colorado. We compete in stage, cross, and hill climb. It is even more fun being in the car, than watching the video.
The best part is how casually he pulls his hand up to block the sun at 100 mph.
Amazing!
@ #8 – yes. He probably did the last part of the race half-blind. I love how trusting spectators are at these races. At about 3:53 it looks like he almost goes over the edge… :-O
This reminds me of a video i saw of a Ferrari speeding through Paris without stopping once. I heard and i don’t know if it’s true that the guy who made this film submitted it to Cannes and then was arrested there by the police for the speeding that he filmed. Could just be a legend though…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWLPIT-geTs
Nollie, the funny thing is it turns out he was driving his Mercedes 450SEL 6.9 and just dubbed in the Ferrari soundtrack. It’s by Claude Lelouch and is called C’était un Rendez-vous.
This is great and have to agree with #8 about putting his hand up.
The French Rendevouz is great too and supposedly the driver is a famous French F1 driver not C. Lelouch.
Wow, I remember seeing this on an HDTV in a Nantes [France ] electronics shop back in ’91. Always wondered what it was–the under carriage shots, best in widescreen, were what I remember–now I need to find it to demo on my HDTV.