COMEBACK

I’m running wide. Real wide.

I’m ripping up Pikes Peak, tickling 13,000 feet, entering a corner they call Bottomless Pit at 113 mph in my Tesla Model 3 race car.

Up to this point, everything had gone smoother than a warm chocolate fondue. It’s my sixth shot answering the siren’s call from the fourteener boulders of America’s Mountain—the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The thrills and challenge of open-road racing are irresistible to me. But things have just taken a bad turn.

Just three months before, I was on a podcast with Ben Schaffer of Unplugged Performance, the noted Tesla tuner. I needed a ride, so I threw it out there: Say, why don’t we ask if we can borrow the Model S Plaid for Pikes Peak? “Not likely,” Schaffer said.