Rick Knoop is a veteran racer whose career spans 36 years and includes wins at LeMans and Daytona, and is one of the top American endurance racers. At age 60, he was still a fierce competitor at this years Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
His car, the Knoop-Mann Special, started life as a 1958 Jaguar Lister that was rebodied and given the massive horsepower needed to make a go of this race. This is only the second time that Knoop and his team have attempted Pikes Peak, but Knoop was prepared for the challenge.
His biggest challenge? Knoop says it’s all about concentration that never wavers. In some races, losing concentration means your overall time suffers, but not so at Pikes Peak. He knows that here, a moment of lost concentration could mean a debris field scattered across the side of a mountain.
Listen in as Knoop discusses his hopes for the race in this exclusive TFLcar interview.
Nicole Wakelin fell in love with cars as a teenager when she got to go for a ride in a Ferrari. It was red and it was fast and that was all that mattered. Game over. She considers things a bit more carefully now, but still has a weakness for fast, beautiful cars. Nicole is a member of the New England Motor Press Association and also writes for Automotive IT News, NerdApproved, and GeekMom. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
