Seven years ago, Colorado Springs native Tim Hardy bought a 1988 BMW E30 on Craigslist for $450.

From there he built and modified his find into one of the top-20 qualifiers at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb.

On Sunday, with a time of 9:59.709, he brought his Hoosier machine to new heights.

“We’ve been doing this for six years and this was our best run by far,” Hardy said. “I was hoping to get it to right under 10 minutes and it’s pretty awesome to be a part of the limited number of people who make it under the 10-minute mark.”

Hardy grew up a Hill Climb spectator, going up with his dad every year since before he can remember. And when he was 23 he made the leap to purchase a car with the intent on racing when the course was still unpaved. But the pieces didn’t fall into place for him to race on the dirt track due to the extensive rebuild of his BMW.

“Everything has been gone through and redone,” Hardy said. “We had it on a rotisserie and flipped it over, we started on a shell and stitch welded the frame up and gone through it multiple times. We made all of the aerodynamic panels ourselves to try to lighten the car and try to get a car that’s aerodynamically like a brick to run closer to something like a Porsche or something that flows better.”

That attention to detail helped Hardy to his best run up Pikes Peak thanks to a good week of practice and qualifying.

He said with the car so dialed in and running well mechanically he could focus on his driving and mentally prepare for a fast race.

“But there are definitely some seconds in there,” Hardy said. “A couple corners I messed up and the tires started to get a little bit warm. But I felt like I was significantly faster at the bottom than I’ve ever been. I just hope we can keep climbing down the ladder.”