Tom Tang has always loved cars. “I’ve been fascinated with cars for as long as I can remember, going back to being a kid and playing with matchbox cars,” he says. “My parents never understood it. When I was in middle school we moved out to California to the Bay Area and during that time, which was before YouTube, I used to get a lot of my car content from books, magazines and DVD’s. I was especially into Japanese tuning culture, and one of my first cars was an Acura Integra that I modified.”
Tom Tang will be taking on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb for the third time in 2026 and we’ll be with him along the way, reporting on his preparation and planning here on BimmerLife.com, followed by a report on the big event in BimmerLife magazine. In this first installment, we’ll tell you how this all came about and why Tang is compelled to put a lot of money and effort into going really fast up a mountain.
The enthusiasm for Japanese tuning culture led Tang and some friends to take a pilgrimage to Japan when they were in college to visit some of the tuning shops they had dreamed about, which ultimately led to more direct involvement. “Super Lap Battle had become a cool time attack event and in 2008 J’s Racing had the idea of shipping a right-hand drive Honda S2000 over from Japan to campaign and that car ended up doing really well. That made me really want one, and I ended up buying a crashed S2000 and built it into my first ever track car.”
By 2009, Tang was helping to market and sell J’s Racing parts. “There was a realization that a lot of the niche Honda tuners out of Japan didn’t have much brand awareness or representation stateside,” he says. “We had the idea to do some marketing here and help them sell their stuff.” J’s Racing and Tang also worked together to have his team campaign one of their cars in Redline Time Attack, which had become a national series. “I hired a friend to drive it, since it was right-hand drive, but while this was happening, I was really starting to dip my toe into track driving,” says Tang. “I started doing track days and was doing two or three weekends a month with my S2000. I also started doing time trials and time attack events, and in 2014 I got my first competition license with NASA and ended up becoming a class regional champion in northern California.” Tang went on to race in time attack events and endurance races like the 25 Hours of Thunderhill in California. He eventually switched from Honda to BMW, first with an E36 M3 and eventually to the E46 M3 he has now, but more on the car next time.
Having the experience in timed events and the need for speed culminated in a first entry to the Pikes Peak Hill Climb two years ago. “I used to watch the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in the early 1990’s when I could get my hand on videos, and I always thought it was so cool,” recalls Tang. “It was such a dangerous, wild event and you have to be a little bonkers to want to do it. In 2013 when they fully paved the road it was becoming more within reach, because I didn’t really have any dirt racing or rally experience. That seed was planted in my mind that it would be fun to go back to my roots with the time attack mentality and build a car for Pikes Peak.”
Tang’s rookie year at Pikes Peak was in 2024, and he impressed everyone by finishing seventh in the Unlimited class and seventeenth overall out of 60 cars. “Most people are happy if they go under 11 or 12 minutes,” says Tang. “I finished my first year with a 10:31 my first time out, which made me the fourth fastest BMW to go up the mountain. I got the bug and went back last year, but we ran a shorter course because of the weather (Tang finished eleventh overall and sixth in class in 2025). I’m going back this year because I feel there’s unfinished business.”
Tang will race with updated Toyo Tires livery this year. [Photo by Edgar Molina]
In part two of Tom Tang vs. The Mountain, we’ll give you more details on the amazing E46 M3 that he’ll be driving this year.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy Tom Tang, Edgar Molina]
