Pikes Peak: Mitsubishi spoils Toyota's electric dreams and then gets Monstered..

Despite setting the Electric Vehicle class record in 2012, Toyota were unable to repeat the achievement in yesterday’s 91st running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado Springs, losing out to Mitsubishi and then independent runner Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima.

Pikes Peak veteran Rod Millen completed the course in the Toyota TMG EV P002 electric race car in 10:24.301, some nine seconds behind last year’s 10:15.380 record-setting run by Fumio Nutahara.

Rivals Mitsubishi finished 2nd and 3rd in class with drivers Hiroshi Masuoka (10:21.866) and Greg Tracy (10:23.649), but neither were anywhere close to nine-time Unlimited champion Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima who climbed the mountain’s 156 turns in his electric 2013 E-Runner Pikes Peak Special to achieve a new Electric Vehicle record of 9:46.530.

It was the second outright record of the day, following on from Peugeot’s Sébastien Loeb who shattered the overall course record with a time of 8:13.878 in the 208 T16 Pikes Peak.

Nine-time Unlimited champion Monster Tajima, was the first driver to break the 10-minute barrier in 2011 and is now the first to dip under 10 minutes in an electric vehicle.

He switched from his traditional combustion-engine formula to the new Electric division last year, but failed to complete the race when forced to shut down the E-Runner because of an onboard fire at the start.