Suzuki’s Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima set a time of 10 minutes, 15 seconds, at Pikes Peak hillclimb last weekend, effectively beating the Ford Fiesta of double World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm. However, Tajima failed to surpass his own record time of 10 minutes, 1 second, possibly due to thunderstorms during the climb. Tajima had been driving a heavily modified Suzuki SX4 with a turbocharged 884bhp 2.7-litre V6. On the other hand, Gronholm recorded a time of 11 minutes, 28 seconds, after having crossed the finish line with disintegrating tires and engine problems. Gronholm, who had with him a co-driver, vowed that he would be more prepared next year. He arrived in the US having only completed a short shakedown in his 800bhp Ford Fiesta. Teammate Andreas Eriksson had crashed during his timed run. Briton Mark Rennison, who drove a 1150bhp Ford RS200, recorded a time of 11 minutes, 56 seconds.

[via autocar]

Tags: car news, pikes peak suzuki, suzuki 2009 pikes peak hillclimb, suzuki news

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 11:01 pm and is filed under 2009, 4wheels News, Automakers, Suzuki, U.S.A., Year, Zone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.