MONSTER MASTERS MOUNTAIN; Suzuki's Nobuhiro Tajima won New Zealand's Race to the Sky, and set a record doing it.(Motorsports)

Byline: EOIN YOUNG

Suzuki motorsport president Nobuhiro "Monster'' Tajima set the fastest time and broke the overall record at the Silverstone Race to the Sky Hillclimb in New Zealand. Tajima drove his 850-horsepower twin-turbo Suzuki special in the hillclimb, a sort of antipodean version of the Pikes Peak event with many of the same competitors, run near Queenstown, the tourist center on the South Island.

Tajima dedicated his win to New Zealand driver Possum Bourne, who won the event in 2001. Bourne was severely injured in a freak head-on collision when driving down the hill course in his Subaru Forester on Friday before the Easter weekend event (AW, April 28).

Tajima's 8:10.022 time was good enough to break the record. Rod Millen was second fastest, 22.05 seconds slower in his mighty Toyota Tundra off-road racer.

Naming the climb The Silverstone is not as oxymoronic as it sounds. Silverstone refers to the name of the Malaysian tire company that sponsors the event, not the airfield-flat Silverstone Formula One circuit in England. Tajima combined sport with pleasure, honeymooning over the weekend when he returned to win his fourth climb title on the Cardrona hill. Tajima is powerfully built, earning his nickname, and he uses it in his own company promotions. The Suzuki special carries MonsterSport Speed Equipment logos.

Tajima's car was tailor-made for Pikes Peak and reengineered for New Zealand. He sits central in the cockpit, crouching over the wheel, finger-flicking as he waits for the start, thinking his way through the first of 137 corners on the long climb to the clouds. The broad, spade-like nose spoiler across the front and wide fender side fins give the red Suzuki a look of aggression. Tajima builds on that. The Suzuki has tires that look almost skinny compared to the wide boots on Millen's Toyota, but they allowed Tajima to employ a fast line through the corners, whereas Millen, a wrangler at the wheel of the big truck, was more or less committed to follow the road rather than enjoy any ability to fine-tune his route up the hill. Finesse is not a word that figures high in Millen's lexicon.

The nine-mile-long road climbs from 1500 feet to 5000 feet, with a constant change of gravel surface from dust drifts to bouldery trenches plowed into the inside of the tightest turns. First-time U.S. competitor Jeff Zwart compared the worst bits of the Pikes Peak road to the best bits of the Cardrona climb. Zwart was competing in a brand-new Mitsubishi Evolution bought in the United States and completed by Ralliart in New Zealand. His best climb was 27th fastest at 9:45.19. Zwart, used to driving a Porsche GT2 at Pikes Peak, was coming to terms with a car that steered by the steering wheel, instead of throttle-steering the rear wheels as in the Porsche. A filmmaker, Zwart drove in the 1993 New Zealand Rally and has shot several car commercials in New Zealand.