Meet Duncan Cowper: the Pikes Peak plasterer

“I am not Adrian Newey, I'm Duncan from Bishop’s Stortford,” says Duncan Cowper, a specialist lime plasterer from Hertfordshire. Duncan might not be F1’s greatest car designer, but he’s stood near the start line of the Pikes Peak race in Colorado and we’re looking at the Dax Rush he’s designed, built and brought over to compete (for the second time) in what is probably the world’s most extreme hillclimb. And Duncan’s car... isn’t slow.

Duncan has turned up to Pikes with a car that looks very much like a Caterham, except it’s a Dax – a UK sports car company from Essex now known as JK Sports cars that produces GRP Cobra replicas complete with 8.2-litre V8s. Back in the day, Dax produced several different GRP kits, including a Caterham/Lotus 7-alike in the 1990s called the Dax Rush. Which is what Duncan is driving. Sort of.

Because Duncan’s car is powered by a 500bhp turbocharged Suzuki 1300R Hayabusa bike engine. It’s rear wheel drive, sequential, lightweight and very, very fast. Even detuned to between 340–350bhp here for the intestinal twists of the PP sprint, it looks like a handful. And it’s not even got any anti-roll bars, instead running odd looking ‘camber compensation’ suspension: a cobwebbed multi-link designed to keep the wheels flat no matter the load. Handy, given the application. The brakes, incidentally, are from Valtteri Bottas’ F3 car. Add to that the Duncan approved aero, and it makes it a heady home brew of the best kind.

Photography: Olgun Kordal

Which is exactly what Pikes Peak is about. But how did a plasterer from the UK end up here? Well, Duncan’s story is one of the strangest and most life affirming you can imagine. He started off as a mechanic building cars, wanted to be a welder but needed qualifications, which were a worry when dealing with dyslexia. Facing those challenges, he kept a hand in with the mechanical side of things, working for Dax as a shakedown and test driver, later starting the plastering business. But in-between, Duncan was club racing his own car and helping his friends prep and run cars at various events.

But not just any old gear – Duncan was helping out at Geoff Page Racing, a specialist in Group B rally and turbo F1 cars and a myriad of other serious history pieces. He was prepping cars for Goodwood like Ayrton Senna’s Tolman, Rod Millen’s Tacoma and Celica – some serious kit. But one car started the Pikes Peak bug. And hard.

“One friend happened to have Ari Vatanen’s 405 Pikes Peak car that needed a shakedown and he asked me to do it at a local airfield. So of course I said yes! And the first thing that I did was lift my right hand up like a sun visor, obviously...” If you remember the famous 1988 Climbdance film, you’ll get exactly what he means. And after competing – and winning – building and rebuilding his Rush in different events over the years, Duncan decided that Pikes Peak was the thing.

“I was told I’d be better off building a car just for Pike’s Peak,” says Cowper. “But that wasn’t the point. I wanted to do it in my car. If you get it, you get it.”

What followed sounds like a fever dream. Rod and Rhys Millen were his Pikes references – like being recommended by royalty – and a tiny budget was scraped together between friends, colleagues and acquaintances. There were ups and downs and wing and a prayer scenarios, broken engines and all sorts of setbacks.

But Duncan Cowper doesn’t seem to know how to fail. In 2024 he was second only to Romain Dumas’ 2,000bhp SuperTruck in practice in the second sector. He came third in the Unlimited class and ninth overall. Top 10 for a plasterer from Bishop’s Stortford in a car he built himself, in one of the most challenging hillclimbs in the world.

Yet the best bit isn’t even the car, or the fact that Duncan is actually stunningly fast, it’s the fact that because of passion and commitment, on a budget made of hope, cobwebs and a whole heap of friendship, they’ve got here. And when it comes to inspiring stories and the true spirit of motorsport, you can’t do better than Duncan Cowper, a plasterer from Hertfordshire, and his little Dax Rush.