Carl Fausett
In “Peak 928” writer/race car builder/driver Carl Fausett has hit on three levels.
If you are a fan of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, this book will share each of the challenges facing a modern racing team as they prepare, practice and compete at the “Race to the Clouds” – revered as both the Worlds toughest hill climb event and one of the worlds toughest road races.
This is also the first new book about the Porsche 928 in many years – a car that still has a strong following ever since it received European “Car of the Year” honors in 1978, the first and still only sports car to ever win that title.
And even if you are not a gear-head or a Pikes Peak enthusiast, this is just a darn good adventure story of an under-funded racing team pushing against all odds to the top, well told, and humorously written. Carl’s conversational writing style is rich with information, but delivered in a way that will draw you in like an old friend.
The 156 pages include more than 190 full-color photographs of the race car build and preparation, the practices, and the race itself from both the in-car camera and high-quality out-of-car photographs.
Carl Fausett lives in Horicon, Wisconsin with his wife Connie. His talents are on the creative/inventive side of things, which he feeds daily at the two companies he operates, 928 Motorsports, LLC and Mankind Designs, Inc., now in its 20th year.
Carl’s writing style has been called “conversational,” and he will quickly draw you in like you are talking to an old friend. “Peak 928” is his first book.
From Page 47: The logistics of starting a race at 9,000 feet and running to the summit over 14,000 feet meant that, to produce consistent power throughout the climb, we would need to be altitude-compensating. Without this, we’d be too rich here and too lean there, loosing power on both ends. We were in search of a “dynamic” tune for our injection system.
And, just to add one more variable into the mix, we were building the car at about sea-level. So we weren’t just seeking a tune that allowed the car to perform well here, we were looking for a tune that would make the car run perfectly there. Our worse fear was getting all the way to Colorado just to discover the car was completely out of tune now that we were away from most of our diagnostic equipment!
From Page 72: The 12 miles of Pikes Peak had been divided into three sections (Summit, Bottom, and “the W’s” so named for the zigzag section in the middle). As a Pikes Peak rookie, I had to qualify in each of the sections before I would be allowed to run the race on Saturday.
The officials decided that the Open Division should start right at the Summit for the first practice and qualifying day. Now, when you’re frightened of the magnitude of the mountain and the size of the drop-offs, starting you on your first practice at the highest points of the race course is a lot like teaching somebody to swim by throwing them off the pier. No time to be frightened anymore, you just have to
