PEAK COURAGE Schmidt conquers mountain, self in Pikes Peak run

ICASCADE, Colo. t is a crisp June morning on Pikes Peak, as all mornings here are. It is a little past dawn. Automotive enthusiasts are gathered around racecars the way surgeons and nurses huddle around patients in operating rooms. Instead of sanitary scrubs, they wear racing jackets and beanies pulled down snug to ward off the chill.

There are no scalpels here. Tough on tires. The automotive enthusiasts wield wrenches and tote laptop computers.

They have a need for speed, though racing up the side of this mountain seems a diabolical way to satisfy it.

This is the last big practice run before the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb — the historic 100-year anniversary of the famous Hill Climb, the 94th running of it. It is the second-oldest automobile race in the United States, trailing only the Indianapolis 500 in longevity.

One can feel the history up here. One also can smell the pines.

The starting line is little more than a clearing in the road. It is 3,930 feet above sea level. The summit, where the checkered flag is waved, is 14,110 feet above sea level. There aren’t any pine trees at the summit. There isn’t much of anything, really. Just a restaurant that isn’t open, and a bunch of cuddly marmots, and a majestic wide-open space that sprawls endlessly below.

The serpentine Hill Climb “track” measures 12.2 miles. It consists of 156 turns. And scant few guardrails.

They call it The Race to the Clouds. It is an apt description. When one races to the clouds with a little too much enthusiasm, there may be consequences to pay. Serious consequences.

Did I mention there are scant few guardrails?

You make a mistake climbing the hill, you may come tumbling down in a hurry. If one is lucky, he lands shiny side up. Hopefully, it won’t be in Pueblo.

Standing at the starting line and looking up, it seems a long way to summit. It looks cold up there. Standing at the starting line, all you can see are gray, craggy peaks partially draped in snow.

The fast cars make it up the hill in around nine minutes.

In 2013, Sebastien Loeb, the World Rally luminary, made it up in 8:13.978 in a Peugeot 208 T16. You can’t buy one of those off the showroom floor in Sochaux. Last year, Rhys Millen, who in 2008 flipped a truck over at the Rio during a nationally televised stunt on New Year’s Eve, made it up in 9:07.222 in a sleek electric powered car built in Latvia called the eO PPO3.

Millen’s car runs on a 50-kilowatt lithium-ion battery pack driving six YASA-400 electric motors. It makes a Toyota Prius sound like Detroit Muscle. Not even the cuddly marmots beyond the tree line can hear Millen coming on race day.

Rhys Millen, from New Zealand, is one of those milling about the starting line before the big training run.

So is Sam Schmidt, the IndyCar race team owner from Henderson.

Millen is wearing spiffy driving coveralls. It’s hard to see what Sam Schmidt is wearing. He is confined to a wheelchair, and there are myriad auto racing enthusiasts and technicians wearing racing jackets and beanies pulled snug around him.

Sam Schmidt once raced in the Indianapolis 500. He raced in the big one three times before a testing accident at Walt Disney World, of all places, rendered him a quadriplegic.

Schmidt is paralyzed from the chest down. He’s been in the chair for 17 years.

He will steer his car,