IIRC, last year it was on Altitude, or our local "Comcast Entertainment" channel.

Several teams have hired their own crews (mainly choppers) for filming, namely Tajima and Mike Ryan. Watching Monster drive the Suzuki is a treat but nothing compares to seeing Ryan oversteer the Freightliner around the turns.

Live audio will be available:
http://www.ppihc.com/content.aspx?tabid=7&contentid=195

here you go, straight from Altitude (sent them an e-mail)

Thank you for your interest in Altitude.

We will air a 1-hour highlight show of The 2009 Pikes Peak Hillclimb on
Sunday, September 6 at 1:00pmMT.
Altitude is, however, available nationwide (subject to NBA and NHL
blackout restrictions) in the Dish Network and DirecTV regional sports
package services. Satellite providers are the only ones that carry
Altitude outside of its' 10-state territory.

Now, I don't get them on my current provider, so I will have to look for it, through other means, after it's aired...

Good luck to all, going up the hill. I will have to get DiRT for the xbox 360 out again and take a few runs myself...

TRE it was in Sweden where they tested the car, not in Norway.

Eriksson is Swedish, the team is Swedish, the test place was in Sweden. Let's add one more thing, Marcus Grönholm is Finnish-Swedish and his mother language is Swedish. He does speak Finnish though, very well, I'm sure you wouldn't notice it's not his first language if you heard it side-by-side to native Finnish speaking

So, quite a lot of Sweden/Swedish in this actually.

Anyways.

Some links to articles:


http://www.gazette.com/sports/peak-58653-hill-pikes.html

Hill Climb: Clock is Millen's most challenging opponent
July 17, 2009

<snip>

Third unlimited car breaks down in practice

Marcus Grönholm of Finland had just finished the third and final practice run Friday when his 2010 Ford Fiesta suddenly overheated and stalled near George’s Corner on the Pikes Peak highway.

“We’ll find out what happened,” he said. “Everything was fine beforehand.”

The breakdown leaves only defending champion Nobihuro “Monster” Tajima with nine uneventful practice runs headed into Sunday’s Hill Climb.

Andreas Eriksson of Sweden was sidelined by unfinished body work remaining for his Fiesta, which he rolled in practice Thursday.

<snip>

http://www.gazette.com/articles/pikes-58512-climb-hill.html

Drivers prep for Pikes Peak International Hill Climb
July 14, 2009

<snip>

It will be the first extended time behind the wheel of their new 2010 Ford Fiesta Rallycross cars for Sweden’s Andreas Eriksson, a four-time Swedish Rally champion, and Marcus Grönholm of Finland, a two-time world champ with 30 career rally victories.

<snip>

“It’s been a busy couple of days,” said Eriksson, who co-owns Olsbergs MSE.

<snip>

“We’re not even talking about 10 minutes,” Grönholm said. “There’s a lot of power in those cars but we’ll need to work hard to get the most torque out of them at this altitude. We’ll see.”

It seems Grönholm came second in his class while the Japanese driver won. Don't know what happened to Eriksson.

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8nptFx1jug

Marcus Grönholm and co-driver Timo Alanne in their Ford Fiesta RallyCross car.

http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/ralli/uutiset.shtml/arkistot/ralli/2009/07/917479

Marcus Grönholm, after practice runs:

"I think at some point we broke 190 km/h."

"I have focused on the driving and not thought about it but I guess we have to be a little crazy."

Ford press release:

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=30708

MARCUS Grönholm PILOTS FORD FIESTA TO SECOND IN UNLIMITED CLASS AT PIKES PEAK

“I always wanted to compete at Pikes Peak,” said Grönholm. “Having been here the last week I have to admit that it is one of the most challenging events I have ever done in my career. The handling of the Fiesta is absolutely fantastic, and the BFGoodrich tires were great. Unfortunately we had a few small problems today. I lost some power during the last few kilometers, but I was determined to finish. The Fiesta has the potential to beat the 10-minute record. If I come back I know what we need to do to be fastest.”



Read it all at Ford's website.

<--Artist formerly known as RyBot.... Unfortunately, I did not make it up to the mountain this year... stupid family BS. (I kid) Tajima has been here for years and knows the course, no surprise he came out on top. The Fords might be on par with the Suzuki performance-wise but you can't discount Monster's experience on the mountain. I'm not certain if the Unlimited class gets to choose its running time now that there are others in the class, but it was obvious that the conditions weren't optimal for a record run, if at all.

Well, Grönholm's engine wasn't running well. It is probably a result of them not having experience climbing up a mountain into so thin air and not having the engine optimally configured to suit the conditions.

So they have some tuning to do before coming back for another attempt. Positive is that Marcus said he knows what needs to be done.