There are fast racing series. There are fast racing series. There are racing series that are easy to watch and become a fan of. But nowhere is more free and loose in terms of “running what you’ve brought” than mountain climbing. They’re the last bastion of true, honest-to-God engineering madness left for the average driver and enthusiast. And it has been like that since their inception.
The most famous of these mountain climbs is Pikes Peak in Colorado, as the race up the mountain is approximately 13 miles long, and ends at just 14,000 feet above sea level. This tests the drivers to the maximum, as there is almost no room for error, and the vehicles are brought to the races with very little wind and very little clearance between all rights of way and the flight-for-life helicopter, taking no prisoners. Nor will you have to suffer the consequences of poor engineering.
But still, it’s an almost no-holds-barred battle, and racers can bring just about anything to speed down the famous mountain course. This includes crazy projects like the ‘Sendicar’, a single-seat racecar that’s not powered by a Suzuki Hayabusa-derived V8, but which is far more German in origin. Have you ever heard of someone starting two BMW S1000R engines simultaneously? Yeah, we didn’t have that either.
Born from the mind of Robin Schutt, himself named King of the Mountain four times, the SandiCar – a play on IndyCar – uses the Tatus Formula 4 chassis as the basis for the racer. But instead of the 1.6-liter naturally aspirated motor that usually resides in the middle of a racecar, which develops only 160 horsepower and is used to train potential Formula 1 drivers, Shute and the team stuffed it with a custom-built 2.3-liter V8.
And then they stuck a turbo in it.
according to our friends road and track“Behind (the driver) is that 2.3-liter engine – a custom block built by Synergy, but derived from a BMW S1000 RR engine. A Borg-Warner 92-74 adds some serious punch, bringing sea-level output to about 850 hp. Shute estimates that even at Pikes Peak that number is still going to be in the ‘high seven hundred’. He estimates the long block weighs approximately Adds 130 pounds and it all spins at 13,000 rpm.”
Supposedly the entire car weighs about 1,300 pounds without the driver, so 850 horsepower – or more than 700 at altitude – is going to run like a missile. For its price, my Can-Am Maverick X3 Max weighs a little more, but has 7th power, and jumps. There’s also the fact that at speed, it’s generating over 1,000 pounds of downforce because of all the aero surrounding that crazy engine. But, as you might have guessed, sometimes it’s difficult to hook something up, and keeping it in place is an even bigger challenge.
Shute missed out on winning for the fifth time overall, but came Close to second place, while still securing first place in the Super Unlimited classAnd also set a new course record for rear-wheel drive cars. That said, there’s still a lot left to live up to for the Sandicar and its 2.3-liter turbocharged V8, and it won’t be the last time this racecar runs.
