Ralf Christensson is not your typical Colorado Springs vacationer. He traveled here all the way from Stockholm, where he works in real estate, to admire our big mountain.

Yes, that’s typical.

Christensson will spend his vacation plotting to drive really fast to the top of Pikes Peak.

That’s not typical.

He will compete, driving his 2016 Radical GT3, in the Open division. He’s back, at enormous expense to himself, for his sixth year at The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

“I love the sunrises in the morning, love the track and the people who are in this race are the best,” he says.

Christensson struggles with the logic of his racing hobby. He has no sponsor. Well, no one other than himself.

“There’s no sticker on the car,” he says, looking at his gleaming black beast of a car. “It’s just me. I sponsor it.”

He pauses to laugh.

“It is painful. Very painful, every day. It costs a lot of money.”

He wonders if he should take the traditional path to vacations. You know, lounging on the beach or howling on a roller coaster or savoring wine in Paris.

We see throngs of such traditional vacationers each summer in the Springs. The other day at the grocery store, I saw nearly as many Texas plates as Colorado plates in the parking lot.

(A note to my visiting Texas friends: When driving in crowded one-way parking lot lanes, don’t drive the wrong direction. Such wrong-way driving tends to inspire exotic hand signals from Colorado residents.)

Christensson wrestles with the temptation to be more traditional in his vacation plans.

“Should I do this? Should I do something else? Maybe have a vacation with my family? But so far it’s been this. My family understands.”

It’s easy, really, to explain his choice. Taking naps and eating all the time have their restful charms, but the thrills of this vacation, he says, can’t be matched.

“There’s not anything similar in the world. It’s a track that you really have to respect, a mountain you really have to respect and if you make a mistake it punishes you.

“If it was totally safe, it wouldn’t be fun. We love that little fear, that little danger. That must be in there.”

Chris Rimmer, originally from London, is taking an odd, demanding vacation, too. Rimmer is competing for the second time in the Hill Climb. Rimmer works in Florida most of the year as a representative for Williams Jet Tender, a speedboat company out of England.

For nearly a decade, his work kept him away from racing. He had, he thought, put away his days of roaring around tracks at high speeds.

But he couldn’t quite shake his desire to race.

“I missed it,” he says.

How often?

“Oh, every day.”

So, instead of taking it easy for a week, Rimmer has traveled to Colorado Springs to compete in the Hill Climb in his 2007 Subaru Impreza in the Time Attack 1 category. It’s obvious; he and Christensson are hooked.

“This is my annual vacation now,” Rimmer says.

He shrugs. He’s been rising early, going to be bed late, spending nearly every minute plotting Sunday’s race.

“Yeah, I’m on vacation.”

“There’s not anything similar in the world. It’s a track that you really have to respect, a mountain you really have to respect.” Ralf Christensson, Hill Climb driver