BIRDSALL SHAKES OFF SCARY CRASH
MAKING PLANS TO WOW PPIHC FANS IN 2025 AND BEYOND
Colorado Springs, CO – The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, brought to you by Gran Turismo, draws top competitors from across the USA and around the world. Santa Rosa, California’s Scott Birdsall returned in 2024 to make his fifth attempt at the summit. Familiar to most fans for his eye-catching race truck, this time he entered his 2022 CG/Superlite LMP1.
READY TO RACE AGAIN
“Pikes Peak is something that’s going to be part of my life until I can’t drive competitively anymore,” says Birdsall. “I love it. So what am I looking forward to the most? Just getting there and going up the mountain again.”
That’s not taken for granted after his run in 2023. “Old Smokey,” Birdsall’s immensely popular 1949 Ford F-1 that set the diesel-powered record on the mountain in 2020, suffered a spectacular crash that saw it plummet 175 feet and roll multiple times. Fortunately, he walked away from the crash completely uninjured.
“Having a component failure like that was shocking,” he admits. “That’s probably the most fear I’ve felt in anything. You’re going 100 plus miles an hour into a hard left, and you put your foot down and nothing happens, and, you have milliseconds to think, what am I going to do? Do I downshift? No, it’s just going to spin uncontrollably if I try to downshift it. So my next choice was to try to scrub off speed.”
“I had some kind of miracle happen because there’s no way that I should have walked away from that completely uninjured. I mean, not a bruise on me. I hiked up to the top and was cool as a cucumber. My heart rate was 88 when I got to the summit. The medic jokingly called me Iceman!”
To race up Pikes Peak, drivers must have an incredible level of trust—in the mountain, in their equipment, in themselves. Birdsall credits the rollcage he built with his shop guys, as well as his Stilo ABP helmet and Sabelt seat and belts, for being able to walk away from such a wreck—and as a result, he was ready to roar back in 2024.
“It didn’t really change my approach much,” he says. “I’ve crashed before and pretty spectacularly in road racing and moto, and I’ve got one little off at Pikes Peak in 2018, but 2023’s crash was epic. I guess it just shows that you have to give that mountain the utmost respect, because you can make a driver error or you can have a component failure at any moment, and the mountain is not a soft place to be! It hasn’t really changed my outlook or how I’m going to drive the mountain. I’m going to go out there and drive as hard as I can.”
FROM F1 TO LMP1
With Old Smokey out of commission, Birdsall returned to Pikes Peak with a completely different machine. The CG/Superlite LMP1 is based on the Cadillac Northstar LMP that raced at Le Mans in the early 2000s, equipped with Birdsall’s signature turbodiesel power.
“The reason I chose the LMP car is totally out of convenience,” he admits. “My friend Pat from Safecraft/Next Gen Diesel, who is also one of my sponsors, had an unused LMP1 chassis just laying around. He had always been taunting me with it, so I said, ‘all right, let’s throw a diesel in it.’ That’s basically how the prototype was born.”
Birdsall has a successful run under his belt in 2022 in his Superlite in the Exhibition division clocking a 14:35.897 run.
The visual differences between the Superlite and Old Smokey couldn’t be more obvious, and as Birdsall explains, the required driving styles couldn’t be more different either.
“(With) Smokey, you drive it aggressively and on the ragged edge because it’s not a downforce car, it’s just pure mechanical grip. The rear wing is only there to add more weight to the rear at speed, so you’re not spinning tires at 160 miles an hour. Driving Smokey is like going to war. You’re battling, you’re aggressively driving the truck, and you’re not worried about bumps or a lot of things. You just kind of drive the thing really hard.
“The LMP1 is the complete opposite. You’ve got to be smooth with it—every input has to be smooth. You have to be careful of where you go on the track because of the bumps and you don’t have much suspension travel. It’s far more demanding than the truck, especially being a downforce car. You have to battle the aero bubble. It’s a much more complicated machine to drive than Smokey.”
2024 ON THE SIDELINES
With high hopes for 2024, Birdsall was forced to withdraw his entry just weeks before the race. He shared, “So much happened to sideline our 2024 effort with the LMP1 car. The biggest would be our switch from compound supercharging, to twin charging. In compound turbos, there is a small turbo for good boost response, and a larger one for top end power. This setup was very reliable, but we had issues getting power quick enough in the hairpins. We switched to a twin charge setup which uses a roots style supercharger, and a large turbocharger. Development was long, and after having trouble with belt life, overboost, and high heat, we finally got it working well.
“A day or two before we were scheduled to leave, some one-off parts on the blower sheared, and we couldn’t get them remade in time. We’ll try this setup one more time in 2025, and are hoping for the best. I just hated letting down the fans!”
Birdsall shared his favorite memories of past years on Pikes Peak, exclaiming, “Fan Fest is awesome! Next to the race, Fan Fest is my favorite part. I get to meet all the people that are fans and sign autographs, and I get to hang out with all my driving buddies.”
“It’s crazy the amount of different things this event throws at you, and how much you have to be on your toes just to get to Sunday. You’re driving through three different weather systems on the way up, varying levels of traction, increasing altitude—engines don’t like altitude.
“The biggest reason I keep coming back is, I’ve been racing a long time, and this is truly a mental and physical challenge. Going to an organized road race, you can almost figure out all the variables right there, but at Pikes Peak you just don’t know what you’re going to get in any given day, or any given hour.”
GET TO KNOW SCOTT BIRDSALL
Fun Facts:
“I could actually live on an IV drip of chocolate.”
“If I wasn’t a race car driver, I’d probably still be racing motorcycles. I raced from 8 years old until I was about 30. Motocross was my thing!”
Must Have on the Mountain: “Sunrise at Devils Playground and silence when I’m strapped in at the Start Line.”
Will we ever see Old Smokey rise from the grave?
“ABSOLUTELY. Believe it or not, after a 175 foot drop to its roof, and 10 or 11 rolls, the chassis is still straight. The body is a write off, but that is easily replaced. The suspension arms and energy absorbing parts did their job. We are focused on a 2026 PPIHC start with Smokey V.2 which will be a far more advanced machine, but have the same look and vibe of V.1.”
What intrigues you about building out vintage vehicles?
“Older cars have so much more soul than new cars! New cars feel like appliances with a massive disconnect between the driver and the machine. Older cars are more mechanical, more visceral, and far more exciting to drive. So, if it has more than one or two cup holders, it’s probably not for me.”
WATCH SCOTT BIRDSALL’S WILD RIDE ON PIKES PEAK
Contributor: Chris Leone
Photos by: Larry Chen Photo; Larry Chen, Luis Garcia, Payton Smith, Louis Yio, Charles Zhou, Jason Zindroski; Scott Birdsall
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