4-Time King of the Mountain, Robin Shute, returns for 2025 Pikes Peak Hill Climb
Robin Shute is one of the best personalities at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. He didn't race last year, but he's back now, and when he competes, he tends to win. That makes sense given how much he loves to race.
"I guess this is my moment of zen," Shute says. "It sounds weird, but the rest of life is a lot harder work, like right now on the mountain with a good race car going for me, that's pretty much my favorite all the other times. I don't like it as much."
He loves the Race to the Clouds so much, he’s been King of the Mountain each of the last four times he’s competed. But this year's plan is a surprise.
"The plan is not to win."
Very strange.
"It's a bigger masterplan," Shute says. "Let's say I'm in the middle of designing and making an all new car for Pikes Peak to come and set the overall record. Designing and making race cars is hard. It takes longer than you'd ever wanted, hoped, or wished."
This year Shute is in a 1967 Camero, while his master plan continues. It can take punishment. Something Shute learned when he was in Texas, and the car caught on fire!
"Well, not just Texas, here a little bit as well. It has a habit of being a little bit flamey here and there. It keeps me on my toes, gets me a chance to be woken up in the morning."
"I do have a habit of occasionally setting cars a light."
Winning comes so naturally to Shute, he might do it on accident.
"The plan is not to win, but I can't say that I won't. Come race day, you never know what's going to happen. It could be weather, it could be reliability issues. We could have mammoths on the mountain stopping their top competitors, holding them back, whilst I go through and win. You just don't know what's going to happen."
