A mental reset at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb

Sometimes you just need to disappear into the mountains

One of the most challenging parts of covering Formula 1 is the requirement that I be Online(TM) at all times. The modern media landscape requires you to be tuned in, to have a finger on the pulse of everything: Podcasts, social media posts, major interviews, minor media statements, potential tie-ins to other racing series. I'm not kidding when I say I was receiving over 500 push notifications per day from Twitter alone in hopes of staying on top of breaking F1 news (though I have long since trimmed that number down to something slightly more manageable).

And this is all just in the curation stage; nevermind the challenges of trying to stay on top of multiple news stories, researching multiple scoops, crafting social media content, and trying to stay abreast of all the latest Google SEO changes and social algorithm tweaks.

Even when I'm at the track for an F1 race weekend, there's barely a moment to stop and think between media sessions, meet and greets, promotional events, and more. In Miami, I was up at 7 each morning and on the go until 9 or 10pm every night. And then I'd need to sit down and get some work done before I went to bed and kicked off the cycle all over again.

I think it often lends to this sensation of being pulled in a thousand different directions all at once, which makes it next to impossible to ever immerse. I never sit with a driver's quotes for longer than it takes to send key topics along to my colleagues. I never really get to research a topic to its fullest extent because I'm always chasing deadlines. I never have a chance to stop and look around during a race weekend, to appreciate the care that has gone into transforming a quiet race track or a bustling stadium into a home-away-from-home for hundreds of people. I'm usually looking at my phone, working on my laptop, jotting notes for the next press conference, counting down the minutes until one thing ends and another begins, mentally reshuffling my schedule to cram in as much as I possibly can.

Blink, and you miss it.

But this past weekend, I ventured out to the mountains of Colorado to experience my very first Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and my god, how refreshing.

I made the jaunt thanks to Optima Batteries, who hooked me up with travel, lodging, and plenty of interviews — as well as taking care of all the messy logistics that come with a race weekend (i.e. deciding when to wake up, navigating to the track, figuring out how to acquire food, etc.). I don't want to say that I just sat back and enjoyed the ride, because I was still working. But I did have time to just… be.

PPIHC, also known as the Race to the Clouds, takes place on a large mountain in Colorado. On a standard weekend, drivers try to race up to the summit which towers above the landscape at over 14,000 feet, battling treacherous switchbacks and rapidly thinning air en route to the checkered flag. (We did not have a standard weekend this year; high sustained winds at the summit meant the course was dramatically shortened for safety — but it was still an absolutely exceptional and demanding experience.)

The whole event is stunning. For one day a year, this road in the midst of a state park is closed down to allow 70-odd drivers to race for glory, which means you'll spot high-tech race cars and home-built specials nestled in the trees at base camp. To find your ideal viewing location, you'll have to follow a faint walking path through spruces and pines. Food is served in a massive tent, and the best toilet you can hope for is a port-a-potty. And unless you're hooked up to someone's Starlink panel, there's a great chance you'll be at a complete loss for connectivity to the outside world.

I always travel with a notebook, even to the grocery store. I never find myself jotting down notes, though, because I'm always on my phone. Keeping tabs on drivers. Checking emails. Responding to comments. Editing videos or photos. Doomscrolling. I tend to look up and realize I don't really have a grasp on anything that just happened. I didn't people-watch. I didn't look at the trees.

But at Pikes Peak, I didn't really have a choice. All throughout the weekend, I found myself sitting with my notebook in my lap, jotting down things I'd noticed, questions I had, observations I'd made. I challenged myself to spend my time actually existing in my surroundings, then to describe them.

My first few notes are dry as fuck. I write about the streaming set-up Optima had created for the event's livestream, and about the various sasquatch paraphernalia I'd seen. But the longer I sat there, watching the wind rattle the leaves on the trees, something changed.

I was no longer struggling to breathe; instead, the air was slippery and thin. I could try my greedy best to sip up a lungful of pine sap and searing rubber, but there was nothing there. It made me feel wispy, insubstantial. Like a strong breeze could blow me away. Like there simply couldn't be a strong breeze up there, where the air barely existed.

Up at the summit, the small boulders piled up around the parking lot weren't just stones; they were the crumbs of the gods, scattered carelessly after a feast up here where they thought no one would ever see. And yet there were hundreds of us all gathered there to gaze off into hazy blue shade that can only mean distance.

My ears were no longer popping; they were crackling like an exhaust.

I saw sheep, then wondered what they ate. Then scoured the landscape for something edible. Then imagined what it would be like to thrive so high, above the point where tree line. How those sheep must have felt like kings of the world, and yet how they weren't conquering the landscape the way us humans do. How they were content with lichen and snowfall runoff, while we erected a glass-walled building to serve mediocre food and sell tchotchkes to the people who ascended this monument by car.

I filled up page after page with observations and musings and questions. I got existential. I felt awe at the mere fact that there are still over 70 people in this world who build cars with no purpose other than driving them up to the top of a mountain. Who turn up to the track at 1am and feel grateful for this opportunity. Who roll with the punches, because the mountain is alive, and it is the boss.

For as much as I enjoy covering Formula 1, it can be extremely difficult for me to find any sensation similar to what I felt covering Pikes Peak. The whole experience of F1 feels constructed, controlled, and regimented in ways that suck up all the wonder. The paddock is its own little universe, and that universe feels pretty similar no matter where you are in the world. If there are quirks and differences, you don't really have much time to find them.

Going to Pikes Peak felt profound in ways that I'm still not even fully sure how to describe, but it did remind me what it is I love about motorsport. It's not the exclusivity and celebrity and glamour; it's the timeless urge to mate man to machine in an effort to lose yourself in the blur of nature as it passes you by. And it's a nice reminder for me going forward.