Vehicle Assembly

In 2015 Palatov Motorsports committed to returning to Pikes Peak International Hillclimb in an attempt to claim another class win or better.  Previously Palatov competed with a variation of their D4 and returned home unlimited class winners.  This year they have returned with a D2 to run in the unlimited class.  

The Pikes Peak D2 varies little from the standard road going version of the car.  The biggest difference is the powerplant which has been changed from an Chevorlette LS3 to an LSA and the addition of two more tubes on the roll structure to comply with the rules and to increase safety.  

The addition of the supercharger on the LSA gives an increase of approximately 100 horsepower over the naturally aspirated LS3.  The supercharger is also almost a necesity when running at pikes peak due to the extreme variation in altitude that the car will see over the course of the race.

When I started work on the Pikes Peak D2 there were approximately 40 days until the race and we had only the powdercoated chassis with the engine and transmission fitted to ensure the LSA would work in the chassis.

By the end of the first week the car had been assembled to the rolling chassis state along with having all the interior pannels fitted.  By the second week the vast majority of the plumbing was installed.  Many systems had to be modified to comply with the rules or because the standard layout didnt work with the dimensions of the LSA.  The most challenging system to design was the cooling system and the intake.  The intake design was completed by Tristan Lewis of Lewis Fabrication, I took on the cooling system which had to follow essentially the same routing as the standard D2 but work around the completely different intake and a modified drysump system which was changed to clear the supercharger pullies.

By the third week the car was running and driving.  An attempt was made to take it to Oregon Raceway Park but it was found that the clutch began to slip almost immediately to the point where the car couldnt be driven into the trailer.  The cause of the slippage turned out to be an adapter plate for the clutch release bearing that was too thick.  The custom clutch we had in the car required an adapter with half the thickness as the standard clutch.  A simple fix but one that cost a day of much needed testing.  

The following weekend the car was taken to the dyno to have the new spacer tested along with the rest of the car.  The engine tuner was able to confirm that the clutch was now working properly and tuned the engine to perform better for the race.    

Pikes Peak International Hillclimb Testing

Testing on the Pikes Peak Course occurred June 6th and 7th.  Just getting to Pikes Peak proved to be very challenging.  Along the way our transport trailer had a wheel bearing fail leaving us stuck in Wyoming with no way to transport the car and all of the spares we had brought.  We were able to continue with a rented U-Haul open air car hauler but ended up having to decide what to bring and what to leave behind in the trailer.  

Our transport woes weren't over quite yet.  As soon as we entered the Denver area we were hit by a strong thunderstorm that turned the streets into rivers and gave the Pikes Peak D2 a good weather testing.  

Testing for the race started at 4 AM before the toll gates opened to the public.  The road was separated into two sections with cars on the bottom section and bikes on top for day 1, cars on top and bikes on bottom for day 2.  

Things started out pretty well.  We got the car unloaded, warmed up and ready to run.  It was very interesting seeing how diverse the field was.  Everything from a very clean and professional factory backed electric Honda CR-Z to some very purpose built cars designed only to run up Pikes Peak.

With horsepower numbers from other teams quoted at anything from 750 to 1000 I wasn't really sure how well we would do.  Our LSA output only 540 in comparison but any doubts about our ability to compete were quickly dismissed as the time sheets showed we were not just quick, but the fastest car present.  Things were looking great until we had a belt fail on the third run leading to the engine overheating and the end to our testing for that day but we had made a strong showing.  

The best part of having testing start at 4 am and end by 8 am was a full day to make any repairs and prepare for the next day.  The best part of having a GM engine in the car is parts can be found anywhere.  By mid afternoon the car was all patched up ready for the next test day.  In addition to the belt snapping we found the hose to the fuel pump had slipped off a custom adapter.  Not a big problem to fix but it did lead to some confusion as we had thought the engine may have been damaged by overheating.  

Testing on day two started out very well.  Again we were the fastest car and turned some heads.  Half way through our DOT approved 'slicks' wore through in the rear forcing us to change to some untested rain tires.  Some teams ran the same tire in the dry and said it was fine but our driver was not happy with them.  We started with tire pressures equal to those we ran in the 'slicks' but this proved to be way too much.  Things improved significantly after letting out a significant amount of air but by the time we got the tires dialed in the same belt snapped yet again.  By this time we were at the end of the test session so we only missed one or two runs but having the same component fail twice was a glaring indication that there was a significant problem with the belt system.

One of the most interesting and fun things from testing was having other teams come up to us and ask why our car was so quiet.  We were running our 'street legal' exhaust system and many people where amazed that not only was the car so fast, but it was also 100% street legal and 50 states emission compliant.  The Pikes Peak D2 proved to be not only an incredibly capable race car beating out many cars built specifically for pikes peak with years of development and drivers who were greatly experienced, but was also a car you could quite literally race with and win in the morning, then drive to the shops in the evening.  What could be better?     

Fixes and Improvements

Upon returning to the shop after testing much work had to be done to get the car into race ready form.  The problems we encountered with the belts during testing resulted from a spacer being installed incorrectly on the alternator bracket.  This resulted in a severe misalignment of the alternator in relation to the rest of the belt guides and resulted in the belts being destroyed after only a few minutes of use.  

Many other minor changes were made, mostly cleaning up routing of wires and checking tightness of fittings that would become less accessible after the body was installed.  I also manufactured a new shift knob per Johnathan Frost's request  It had a much greater area to grip so shifts could be made without worrying about a hand slipping off the relatively small shift knob that is normally used. 

We were forced to use a 'Gen 1' body since the D2's new bodywork has yet to be completed and we were able to get it painted in record time.  Fitting was easy and a familiar process aside from using poly-carbonate instead of glass for the windows.  The addition of an intercooler required a new vent to be cut in the right sidepod.  

We wanted to add some aerodynamic down force to the car and our wings arrived just in time to be installed.  It was an entirely experimental installation that included some very interesting 3D printed elements to help form the front wing and some machined parts for the rear wing.  It all came together very quickly and before we knew it the car had a full aero kit that looked very serious.  The final touches came with the addition of sponsor stickers.  In the end the car was looking pretty sharp.    

Pikes Peak International Hill Climb

 Race Week

Registration and Technical Inspection 

Registration and tech inspection was relatively painless.  We had actually overbuilt much of our car so we passed ultrasonic testing of the roll hoops and structure with flying colors.  This was the first chance to see the Honda LMP2 car that was going to be running.  It definitely garnered a lot of attention as it passed by on the back of its transporter.  Unfortunately they would end up having mechanical failures and wouldn't be able to compete.  

Practice and Qualifying

Fortunately our experience during the tire test week allowed us to step into pre-race practice pretty easily.  We were use to going up the mountain in the dark and starting to run by day break.  The biggest difference this time was the sheer number of competitors which limited the number of practice runs we got.  During tire test week we would cycle through every thirty minutes or so but this time forty five minutes to one hour was pretty typical if we were lucky.

The lower and middle sections were familiar but the upper section of the road was new territory for us and the road proved to have some surprises.  The car set off just fine for its first run but as all the competitors returned we realized our car was not among them.  Word slowly trickled in that there had been an issue with the push rods but beyond that we didn't know what to expect.  All that we really knew was the car wasn't able to be driven and it wasn't coming back until after practice was over.  We packed up and waited hoping the damage wasn't significant enough to take us out of the race.  Randy Pobst (a really great guy!) took Johnathan, our driver, a coat in the back of his Nissan GTR.  Even during this time of year there is plenty of snow on top of Pikes Peak and temperatures are near freezing.

Eventually the car returned on the back of a wrecker and we could clearly see that both rear push rods had bent so significantly that parts of the car were dragging on the ground.  Fortunately that was the extent of the damage and I had taken the time to pack fully assembled spares before we left Portland.  The car was actually fully repaired before it was removed from the wrecker but lessons were learned.  

As it turned out, the road had developed bumps so big that they maxed out the rear suspension travel, and then some.  Competitors who had been running the race for many years were well aware of the problems and suggested to our driver an alternative line which avoided the bumps almost entirely.  This, plus taking that small stretch of road a little easier would prevent us from bending more control arms.  Nick from the Meyer Roofing Team volunteered his personal garage for us to use in order to check over our car to ensure nothing else was damaged and to tune everything up.  He even had another one of his team members bring over a set of scales so we could re-corner weigh our car and we got an awesome home cooked meal as well!  What was looking to be a pretty terrible day turned out to be pretty great.

With the car tuned up we were ready to take on qualifying.  This took place on the lower section of the course and it seemed runs took quite a bit longer to complete since everyone was waved off during evenly spaced intervals and times were precisely recorded.  We completed our first qualifying run and was able to post a second even faster qualifying time but mid way through the second runs the course was shut down.  No one really explained why but eventually we got word that a motorcyclist had lost his life when he went off in the upper section of the road.  This served as a reminder that this was a dangerous event with real consequences for making small mistakes.  

Officials decided since everyone completed just one qualifying run, they would only count the first runs.  This was still enough to qualify us first in our class and sixth fastest overall.  

One more day of testing on the middle section follows.  Since everyone has qualified it seems the competitors are fairly reluctant to start practice possibly preferring to prevent additional wear and tear on their cars.  Eventually some cars go up but for the most part things are taken easy.  

Fan fest follows testing in the afternoon.  Down town Colorado Springs is shut down to show off all the competitors cars to the general public.  Its a fairly fun event, many people are surprised to find out that our car is actually street legal running in street trim which includes catalytic converters, headlights and turn signals, the works.  In comparison our nearest competitor is racing a NASCAR like stock car with none of these things.

Race Day

Race day felt kind of lazy and laid back compared to our test days.  We had to make it up the mountain by 7 to ensure Johnathan could attend the drivers meeting which meant we got to sleep in until 4 am instead of the 'normal' 2:30.  

We started out the morning by pulling the car out of the trailer, setting up our pit area, torquing the wheels one last time.  The previous day we had dropped the trailer off and done a full check of every system in the car so there was really little to do on race day.  

Motorcycles went up the mountain course first.  While there were reports of some gentle 'low side' falls, everyone escaped injury and there were no delays in the race that might allow bad weather to blow in.  Once we got word the cars were getting lined up there was a rush to get the car moved over to the start line.  Some final checks were made, the windshield cleaned one last time and before we knew it the car was being waved up to the green flag and was waved off.  All we could do now was sit and wait while listening to the radio commentary and watching the timing board with sector times.  We all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the car had made it to the top but the overall time was about a minute longer than predicted.  We quickly realized that during the final checks the previous day, one of the most senior members at the shop decided to check the belt tension one final time at the last minute which entailed unplugging the boost controller for the super charger and with distractions from journalists and potential sponsors, simply forgot to plug the connector back in.  Accidents happen however and we weren't the only ones to experience a problem on race day.  

Since our car was down on power the next question would be whether our main rival would beat us to the top.  He was waved off just a couple cars after we were and again all we could do was watch the timing board.  His times were close to ours but ultimately a few seconds faster, it wasn't looking good until he failed to post a time in the upper sector of the race.  Minutes past and still nothing and it was at this point that we realized something had happened.  Eventually the radio coverage announced that shortly after passing the second check point his engine had blown up resulting in a DNF.  We had won our class at Pikes Peak!

Mid way through the car runs the weather over Pikes Peak began to turn for the worst.  Thunderclouds appeared and eventually developed into a full storm with every sort of weather imaginable.  Fans and crew ran for shelter as lightning arced across the sky and to the ground, rain went from heavy, to heavier to hail, and on top of the mountain snow fell by the inches.  By the time the storm passed and the sun came out again, officials decided to shorten the race and end it at Glen Cove.  In an unusual twist, they also decided to disregard all the runs that made it to the top and only count times up to Glen Cove which was bad news for us since our main rival had posted a slightly faster time than us through there which would give him the win despite earning a DNF.  Eventually a formal protest was filed and all we could do at that point was wait for officials to make a decision.  The mood in the shop was overall pretty down.  It was looking like we might not win our class after all and failed to achieve our secondary goal of earning a top five and possibly top three finish overall.

The following Tuesday we received a call from the Pikes Peak official body that they had ruled in our favor and that we had officially won our class.  By then it was pretty much back to business as usual at the shop and the news was met with a somber "hooray" as we worked.  Beyond that there was little recognition that we had set out and achieved something great, a class win at Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.