There may be a new contender at Pikes Peak this year and the team is looking to dust off some dirt on their way up the legendary hill climb challenge ahead of the regulars in the Open Class like Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima and Rhys Millen.
The contender in question originates from the Andros Trophy, a French ice racing series that pulls in all thebig names from the continent, much like how Pikes Peak pulls in the household names from the USA. Some of the big names that regularly ply their trade in the Andros Trophy include the likes of former Formula One drivers Alain Prost and Jacques Villeneuve.
However, the Andros Trophy has been dominated by two names in for the past years, quadruple Formula One champ Prost and Jean-Philippe Dayraut. To put things in perspective on how much the two dominate the series, Prost won two on the trot in 2007 and 2008 while Dayraut took the next two for 2009 and 2010.
Prost was behind the wheel of a Toyota Auris both times he won the trophy but has since switched to the specially-prepared Dacia Duster that is pictured here. Dayraut on the other hand is now driving a BMW 1 Series following his time in a Skoda Fabia that has since found a new driver in the form of Villeneuve.
News from the grapevine now is that Dayraut will be attempting Pikes Peak in a Duster similar to the one Prost has been using. Dayraut’s people have reportedly approached Tork Engineering, the folks that made the Duster for Prost, to produce one for him but with Pikes Peak in mind, not a snowy ice mountain.
While Dacia is part of the Renault-Nissan alliance, it sits at the bottom of the food chain in that ladder but the power for the Pikes Peak car will come from the Duster’s heavyweight cousin, the Nissan GT-R. That’s right, the Duster will be packing a projected 850hp twin-turboed V6 under its 900kg weight, giving it a power-to-weight ratio of almost one horsepower to a kilogram.
With the edition of this Duster to the line-up, things are going to get very tight as Millen has further developed his specially-prepared Pikes Peak Hyundai racer and Monster Tajima has also made some aero enhancements to his Suzuki SX-4 Hill Climb Special. Nonetheless, the both of them could just get dusted.
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Source: Autoblog and YouTube
