Japan’s Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima has set a new division record in the Electric Vehicle Class in the 91st running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
The race, held on June 30th, commenced in the morning under a calm, clear blue sky; however these ideal weather conditions took a turn for the worse and a downpour of rain hit the track just before the EV division was set to run.
Despite the wet conditions, ‘Monster’ Tajima piloted the E-RUNNER Pikes Peak Special in 9 minutes and 46.530 seconds. Monster’s time was nearly half minute better than the record (10:15.380) set last year by Fumio Nutahara in a Toyota P002 EV.
Greg Tracy – who was the fastest qualifier within the Electric Vehicle division – approached the time for his run up the mountain, the poor weather forced the team to make a quick tire swap to grooved tires rather than the higher performance non-grooved racing slicks. Both Tracy and Masuoka raced their Mitsubishi MiEV Evolution II in extremely difficult wet conditions, along with limited visibility in the higher sections of the race course, resulting in Masuoka recording a time of 10 minutes, 21.866 seconds, with Tracy following closely behind at 10 minutes, 23.649 seconds.
Electric Division results:
| Pos. | No. | Driver | Car | LapTime |
| 1 | 1 | Nobuhiro Tajima | TAJIMA | 09:46.530 |
| 2 | 32 | Hiroshi Masuoka | MITSUBISHI | 10:21.866 |
| 3 | 34 | Greg Tracy | MITSUBISHI | 10:23.649 |
| 4 | 76 | Rod Millen | TOYOTA | 10:24.301 |
| 5 | 24 | Roy Richards | eO | 17:31.614 |
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