“Burn rubber. Put the pedal to the metal. Floor it!”

Racing lingo that the average citizen will wait his/her entire lifetime to use properly, only to realize that they’ll likely never get the chance. US Mile Racing has recently set up an event that will allow Colorado drivers to go “balls to the wall” for the first time.

Scheduled for Labor Day Weekend, Mile High Sports covered the basics of The Colorado Mile earlier this summer. It is simply a 1-mile top-speed racing event, where registered participants blast through a closed-off track at dangerously high-speeds, attempting to max out the speedometer.

Mile High Sports spoke with Rob Brooks, owner of Pikes Peak Racing, who will be driving a 2012 Nissan GTR and 2015 Corvette Z06 in The Colorado Mile. Brooks has put together a team of cars and drivers to test their limits and show off their products.

Mile High Sports: How did you first hear about the Colorado Mile?

Rob Brooks: We had a couple of people walk through and stop by the shop (Pikes Peak Racing), introduce themselves with the organization and the program that it’s offering, so that’s where we first heard… It was a representative for The Colorado Mile event.

MHS: And you’ll be racing in it yourself?

RB: I plan to, yes.

MHS: How many vehicles will you be using?

RB: We’ll be using multiple vehicles that we’ll be bringing up on behalf of Pikes Peak Racing, so we have a Nissan GTR, a (2015) Corvette Z06, a Challenger Hellcat, a Porsche, and a motorcycle, which I believe is a BMW S1000.

MHS: How many drives from Pikes Peak Racing will participate?

RB: There’s going to be four drivers for five vehicles.

MHS: Have you ever competed in similar top-speed event?

RB: Well I don’t know it’s similar or not, as the mile event isn’t really a competition. You drive to see how fast you can get in your vehicle and it’s all about top speed and maybe a half-mile time. In racing, there’s role races and there’s drag racing, and those maybe I’m a little more familiar with. I’ve never done a mile event where you just drive to see what your top-end speed is.

MHS: Do you have a goal in mind?

RB: I think we have an idea. Since we haven’t done it ourselves we are just shooting in the area a little bit, but we have some goals anywhere from about 185 miles per hour up to about 217-220 mph.

MHS: How do your practice for an event like this? There are speed limits in the real world. 

RB: You don’t really practice I guess, but the best way that I would suggest, at least our plan of action is, we’re not going to go balls out on the first try. That would make absolutely no sense. So we’re gonna do it in moderation. We’re gonna try to find out how big the pass is. We will get over that span of time and just guesstimate. If we have an opportunity to make three passes per car, or four, then we’ll accommodate. First pass might be something that we get up to 150 and then we shut down, and judge and guess at what’s required to slow the car down comfortably, and then evaluate. Then we push it further and on our last pass we’ll push it to the extreme.

MHS: Why should someone come watch this event?

RB: Part of it is going to be to go down there and enjoy the event. And the other part of it is, we’re a shop that provides services for performance vehicles, and someone might be thinking of adding something to their car, maybe something we’ve added to one of ours, and so they can come check that car out. I can’t speak for the mile event, because I’ve never really done it, but I have been in role racing events that span over a half mile. So what I see is that if a spectator can see the whole event, at least in terms of watching a vehicle go down the airstrip, it’s kind of exciting. To see that there’s no rules, there’s no speed limits, it’s in a controlled environment, and you get to see the hottest, fastest cars in the country. I think that’s an attraction, to see what the best of the best is out there.

Another reason to go would be also that this event will have vendors and booths and places to check out and see, and get an idea of what this environment is like in terms of high performance vehicles. Someone might be looking at a certain vehicle, and want to make some additons, this is a great oportunity to go out and look at some of the cars that have had all these things done already. There’s definitely a draw for people that are interested in this type of hobby.

MHS: Are you going to win?

RB: No. We’re not bringing cars that have a lot of top-end speed where you’re going for a 250-275 mph top-speed. Our cars get there faster than those cars do, so if we’re looking at half-mile time, it’s going to be pretty tough to catch us, as long as we don’t break down. I think we can get to certain speeds in a short period of time, but we don’t have cars that are designed to go 278, because cars that are designed to go 278 mph take 15 seconds to take a quarter mile. We have cars that’ll do 8 seconds in the quarter mile. It’s hard to see a 270 mile car go fast in the first 1/8th mile, so it’s give or take.

The Colorado Mile is Friday-Sunday, Sept. 4-6 2015, at the Front Range Airport in Watkins, Colo. Come show support for Pikes Peak Racing and the fastest drivers in the state Labor Day weekend. Pick up spectator tickets here.