Robin Shute knows a thing or two about winning at Pikes Peak. Mainly because he’s done it four times, in a car he and his team have spent years improving. But they’ve hit the limit of what they can do with their heavily modified prototype. Shute’s crew wants to crush the mountain’s overall record, and the only way to do that is to bring a faster car. So they’re building one, but it won’t just be a hill climb car. It’ll be made to murder track records around the world, using a design inspired by the Gran Turismo-only Red Bull X2010.
The initial design philosophy behind this yet-to-be-named giant slayer was explained in a video uploaded to YouTube by Shute’s team, The Sendy Club. Shute, who has worked in high-ranking engineering positions at Tesla, Faraday Future, and Roborace, has raced in a highly modified Wolf GB08 prototype for the past several years. Equipped with a turbocharged, 600-horsepower Honda K20, Shute cracked the once unthinkable nine-minute mark in 2023 to win his fourth overall victory. But Shute and company were still far short of their apparent target, that being the course record—and the Wolf was getting harder and harder to wring more speed from. So, they’re starting from a clean slate to build “the ultimate Pikes Peak racer.” Within their means, of course.
Shute didn’t let the cat out of the bag as to what his team has in store, but he did outline some of the Wolf’s limitations that the new car would rectify. It will likely be a tail-heavy, rear-wheel-drive car instead of the current all-wheel-drive record holders, as his data suggests rear-drive cars aren’t disadvantaged in Pikes Peak’s many hairpins. It’ll have somewhere in the region of 65 percent rear weight bias, much more optimized aero, and a dedicated single-seat design rather than the Wolf’s adapted two-wide cabin. Another engine is in the cards too, but replacement candidates weren’t disclosed.
The car’s overall shape was seemingly previewed in renders flashed on-screen, which bear more than a passing resemblance to Red Bull Racing’s hypothetical world-beater: the X2010. This video game-only fan car was designed by renowned aerodynamicist Adrian Newey and was meant to be the fastest possible track car when it was conceived. Yes, even quicker than Formula 1 cars or Le Mans-Daytona Hypercars. Shute admits in the comments section that the car “might have been an inspiration,” so it may look more than a little like the fictional Red Bull.
But fictional, it may soon not be. We’ll keep an eye on Shute’s YouTube channel for developments, and we suggest anyone with eyes on course records anywhere does too.
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