Michèle Mouton Beat the Hail and the Gravel to Own Pikes Peak

Colorado, July 1985. A hailstorm has come through, and the road up Pikes Peak is slick.

In 1985 the course is gravel. The paving will not start for years.

Michèle Mouton, a rally driver from France, rolls her Audi Sport Quattro to the start line anyway.

She knows this mountain. She came here for the first time a year earlier, and she won the Open Rally class on her first try. This time she has come back for the whole thing.

The Quattro drives all four wheels, and on gravel after a hailstorm, that matters. Mouton takes it up the mountain one turn at a time, all the way to the summit.

When the clock stops at the top, it reads 11:25.39.

That is a new overall record for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Mouton is King of the Mountain, the title the hill climb gives its overall winner. She is the first woman ever to earn it.

More than forty years and a lot of fast drivers later, she is still the only one. In 2025, the hill climb put her in its Hall of Fame.

Anyone who drove or rode the Pikes Peak road back when it was dirt: what part of that climb do you still remember?