FasterSkunk Racing

People have asked what the "secret" to a 12:19 Pikes Peak run is.

There isn't one.

In fact, almost every major component on this car has always been commercially available. The roll cage is the only truly custom piece, and even that can be built by the same incredible fabricators who built ours.

The difference has never been what we bought.

It's what we bought... tested... logged... questioned... removed... replaced... and, occasionally, bought again.

For nearly a decade we've been iterating on this platform. Plenty of good parts didn't survive. Not because they were bad, but because they weren't the right ingredient for *this* recipe.

A huge amount of that credit belongs to **529 Innovations**. Their engineering, willingness to challenge assumptions, and relentless pursuit of better is woven into this car. The ecosystem around the parts matters just as much as the parts themselves. Buying a similar component isn't the same as buying into years of testing that explain *why* it's there.

Now let's address the elephant in the room.

A 12:19 was good enough for 57th overall.

If that sounds "slow," welcome to Pikes Peak.

This isn't a race where rookies get their own mountain. Production cars, purpose-built race cars, factory efforts, seasoned veterans, first-timers, five-figure budgets and seven-figure budgets all face the same 156 corners.

We didn't build the 57th fastest car in the world.

We built a production-based Audi that climbed one of motorsport's toughest mountains in 12:19, improved from 64th in qualifying to 57th on race day, and validated nearly a decade of engineering.

The recipe isn't what stayed on the car.

It's everything we learned by taking the wrong parts back off.

We're already working on the next round of iteration. The mountain handed us another stack of homework, and we fully intend to be back.

If you'd like to follow along as we chase the next version of this recipe, we'd love to have you.

📸: Guess Work Photography
Racing for ALS
OneOf250
Lifetime Audi Parts
Jzilla Track Days
CJM Industries
NOPI
Audi Club Carolinas
Babyface Fabrication
Cars and Coffee Morrisville, Inc
Vitour Performance Tires

When I told people I was driving to Colorado with a trailer and a race car, most assumed I'd be making the trip alone.

Instead, Justin met me in a Walmart parking lot, climbed into a 65-foot truck-and-trailer combination, and immediately became the world's most overqualified road trip companion.

Over the next two days, his responsibilities somehow included spotting trains, finding food that wasn't terrible, locating diesel stations with truck lanes, translating years of Honda knowledge into something useful on a German race car, reminding me to present my "papers" at weigh stations, and making sure we both appreciated the twenty accidental miles we spent on Route 66.

It was his first trip to Pikes Peak.

It was mine too.

By the time we got to Colorado, he wasn't just along for the ride anymore. He was turning wrenches, helping prep the Audi, asking questions, learning everything he could, and becoming part of the crew. The mountain has a way of doing that to people.

One of my favorite parts of racing isn't the trophies. It's watching people catch the same bug that got me years ago. Justin showed up to help me get to Pikes Peak. I have a feeling Pikes Peak got a hold of him, too.

Thanks for taking the adventure with me, my friend. I wouldn't trade the conversations, the miles, or the memories for anything.

The mountain may have my name on the entry list, but it took a team to get me to the start line.