Before Ford became one of the most recognizable names in the world, Henry Ford understood something simple and powerful: racing could prove what an idea was capable of.
In 1901, before Ford Motor Company was founded, he climbed into a race car called Sweepstakes and entered a 10-lap match race that would help change the course of automotive history. The victory proved both the machine and the vision behind it. It gave Henry Ford the momentum, credibility and belief that would eventually lead to Ford Motor Company…and to 125 years of racing across dirt, desert, pavement, mountain passes and some of the most demanding stages on earth.
In 2026, Ford Racing honors that legacy and pushes onward - and upward.
June 21, Ford Racing returns to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb with Romain Dumas back behind the wheel of the Super Mustang Mach-E. He will enter race day qualified first in the Unlimited - Production Based class and third overall with his Thursday time of 3:28.919, and carrying No. 125 in honor of Ford’s 125 years of racing. On a mountain defined by history, invention and ambition, the number marks where Ford has been and signals where it’s going.
Few places could tell that story better than Pikes Peak.
First held in 1916, the Race to the Clouds was created to draw the world to a road climbing toward the 14,115-foot summit of America’s Mountain. From the beginning, the event demanded nerve, engineering and imagination — 12.42 miles, 156 turns, thin air, changing grip and a climb that still asks every driver and every machine to prove themselves one corner at a time.
Ford was there at the beginning. Ford entries competed in the first running of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, tying the brand to the mountain from the earliest days of the event. That connection now spans 110 years. Henry Ford used racing to prove possibility. Pikes Peak continues to challenge it.
Driven by Dumas, the overall Pikes Peak record holder and one of the mountain’s defining modern competitors, the Super Mustang Mach-E represents the latest expression of Ford Racing’s electric demonstrator work. It carries it into one of motorsport’s most extreme environments, where elevation, temperature, surface and speed compress years of learning into a single run to the summit.
At Pikes Peak, Ford Racing’s past and future meet on the mountain.
