In less than a month, citizens residing near Colorado Springs will get the chance to attend the 100th anniversary race of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb challenge, one of the most dangerous point-to-point racing events in the world. Conquering the peak of this 12.42 miles long course has always been one of motorsports’ cream-of-the-crop undertakings, with various numbers of unique machines trying to beat the environment in the hands of unbelievably talented drivers.
Therefore, it is only natural that Gran Turismo players would yearn for this charismatic course, especially since it hasn’t appeared in the series since the good-old days of Gran Turismo 2. During an interview with Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi, GTPlanet founder Jordan Greer brought the topic to the table in order to find out more about the possible inclusion of the track in Gran Turismo Sport. Kazunori stated:
‘We want to put it in the game. When we’ll actually achieve that, I don’t know.’
For long-time readers, this isn’t the first time the track has been hinted at. The first sign of Pikes Peak’s return to the series once more was given when Red Bull noted the track would appear in Gran Turismo 5 (a story later removed). Additional commotion was created years later when we discovered that Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo series would become the title sponsor for the 2015 Hill Climb event. All these events implied we wouldn’t have to wait too long before laying our hands on the course, but as it seems now, the track won’t appear when the game arrives in stores in November this year.
Although off-road racing has been definitely confirmed, details regarding its implementation in the career mode are still unknown. Kazunori, however, did mention what kind of approach they are going to focus on:
‘We haven’t fully decided how we are going to implement off-road racing, but we want to make sure that the new version has a lot of fun tracks, as we think dirt driving is fun. The previous versions of Gran Turismo had dirt tracks, and they were always fun.’
Well, we can still hope the Pikes Peak rally course will appear as a part of future game updates…
Stay tuned to GTPlanet for more GT Sport news.
See more articles on Kazunori Yamauchi, Pikes Peak, and Polyphony Digital.
I didn’t find the GT5 dirt tracks particularly fun or inspiring. GT6 was alright, but man I did love me some good old El-Capitan in tha 22B STI from the PS2 days!
El-Captain !!!
The game is supposedly less than six months out, and they haven’t decided how theyre going to implement an entire discipline they’ve said will be in the game.
That’s not concerning at all.
I’d leave to dedicated rally games
PD won’t get the rally engines to sound right so for Pikes Peak I’ll stick with Dirt Rally.
I want it, it would be great to know the only track from CO is in GT, I live just 1 hour from it ;)
There are at least two road courses in CO though; High Plains, and the other “Pikes Peak” raceway closer to CO Springs…
Most likely GT7. It would be a nice addition.
That would be amazing, but I would hope that they’ve improved the physics on dirt and snow since GT6 because I’ve always thought the off road racing in GT left much to be desired. Frankly, I’d even go for less realism like Dirt 3 rather than what its been like in the past GT’s. Hopefully, they can get it on level with Dirt Rally, or even better Sebastian Loeb Rally Evo.
(I’m assuming them equaling or beating Richard Burns Rally’s physics will never happen, since even rally focused games of the past ten years have never come even close)
If it ends up coming, maybe it’ll either be an update or DLC for GT Sport or it’ll be in GT7. GT Sport’s new rally cars would be fun to tackle Pike’s Peak in.
Pikes Peak hillclimb is the 2nd oldest race in the world next to Le Man and is the most dangerous race in the world. It should be just as popular as the Nurburgring.
Indy is older than both those races.
True. The Indy 500 started in 1911 and pikes peak hill climb started in 1916 how ever I’ve been to the pikes peak hill climb and that was on a brochure there.
How old is Le Mans?
Well after doing a little research today I found out I was completely wrong. Indy 500 started in 1911 pikes peak hill climb started in 1916 and le man started in1923. How ever for 2016 both Indy 500 and pikes peak hill climb say it’s their 100th race. I would have to agree that Indy cars started first how ever pikes peak hill climb is still the 2nd oldest race in the world!
In case you guys can’t wait to try Pikes Peak in current gen consoles you can drive it in DiRT Rally, it looks beautiful and runs @60fps, 1080p on both XBone and PS4 (dynamic resolution on the Bone though).
Sebastian Loeb Rally Evo as well. Worse graphics, and only 1080p 30 fps, but better physics.
I miss the good old days of doing the gtplanet pikes peak challenge… Having to post times in different cars… Ahhhh the good ol days
Pikes Peak was always a possibility after GT2, more modern inclusions of Tajima’s “Pikes Peak” cars, and GT sponsorship in the real event. We didn’t need asking Yamauchi to know that. It’s the course I personally want to see above any other. It’s local to me, so I’ve been to PPIHC as well as driven the road on my own; of course I want it. Both a current full-paved version as well as something like a 2010 version where it still alternates between gravel and tarmac.
Rallying in general though, Polyphony hasn’t pulled off since GT4. It was at least fun to slide around in the dirt then, while it doesn’t feel right in 6. It’s kinda stiff.
@Sasek: Isle of Man would be cool, but probably unlikely considering how massive it is. There’s a PS2 motorcycle game dedicated solely to that track, which probably says something about how great an undertaking it would be with modern graphics and detail.
I just want in next Gran Turismo 3 special tracks. Nordschleife which we already have, Isle of Man TT and Pikes Peak. Then I will be satisfied.
I won’t touch another GT product until they remove those pathetic PS1-style invisible walls and unbreakable plastic walls in dirt and snow tracks.
That’s an odd criterion…
I got one thousand more
That bothers me a lot too but it seems like they are improving going by Willow Springs in GT6. It’s almost completely open, like how the Top Gear track should’ve been in GT5.
Of course the rally tracks in GT6 still had invisible walls…
Meet his thousand and he’ll have a thousand more, that’s my guess.
Wrong guess.
That’s…um…A bit oddly specific. The walls are there for a pretty good reason in places like Toscana: If there was nothing to keep the cars on the road, people will cut every corner.
You can have corner cutting penalties without walls.
Or simply design the tracks in such a way that corner cutting isn’t advantageous. A few carefully placed boulders and ditches should do it.
Remember what happens when you go off track in Dirt series? You’re brought back to where you left it.
For example…. And what about the classic speed/time penalty
I felt Grid Autosport did a good job with that. Basically a slow down penalty if you cut the corner. It varied in length depending on the size of the cut and I never found it unfair. Usually you’d lose a place or two without a massive reduction in speed.
Fun dirt tracks in GT ? Not for me, i didn’t found physics were fine in dirt tracks… Snow tracks physics was better, even if they were larger than in real WRC… And that system of races are not good in dirt-snow tracks… boring and unreal …
I remember a good tarmac-snow time-trial challenge in GT4 with the Peugeot 205 Turbo, that was fun !!!