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Colorado introduced a special license plate to celebrate its most famous motorsport event, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The plate is available to car owner for a small premium to show support for the world’s most famous, most extreme hill climb race.
Revealed Tuesday, the license plate is based on the standard Colorado plate, with alphanumeric characters against a white mountainous background. However, in place of the regular plate’s dark green sky, the Pikes Peak plate has the state flag’s letter C rising behind the mountains, where it casts sunbeams over the race cars to each side. Their numbers of 19 and 16 pay tribute to the race’s inaugural year of 1916, while their silhouettes represent the race cars of past and present.
The plate is available for Colorado-registered non-commercial vehicles, including passenger cars, motorcycles, RVs and motorhomes, and trucks weighing less than 16,000 pounds empty. Unlike many special group plates, the PPIHC plate requires no special certificate to obtain, and is available to all members of the public for a $50 fee. For an additional $60 initially (and $25 annually), the plate can be personalized, provided you don’t want it to say something crude.
The PPIHC’s campaign for the plate may serve as a useful template for other motorsport events across the country to obtain their own special plates. Race organizers gathered at least 3,000 signatures to petition the Colorado Legislature, which approved the race’s special plate in May 2022. If only a few thousand signatures are needed to get plates approved, then there’s no reason why race fans couldn’t also get them for famous races like the Daytona 500. That’s your cue, folks—do it for Dale.
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