It’s been three year’s since the last running of the Subaru Mount Washington Hillclimb, but Subaru Rally Team USA is hoping to pick up right where it left off in 2014.
SRTUSA’s David Higgins and Travis Pastrana are set to take on the 7.6-mile course in New Hampshire in an attempt to break Higgins’ current course record, set in 2014. And there’s plenty of reason to believe they could do so.
Higgins and Pastrana both have dominated the “Climb to the Clouds,” setting a combined three records: Pastrana set an unofficial best time on the mountain while filming a promo video in 2010, Higgins bested that time in 2011 to set a new official course record and then broke his own record in 2014.
Competing in the unlimited class, both Higgins and Pastrana won’t be allowed to have a co-driver with them as they ascend 6,288 feet into the sky. That presents even more of a challenge considering they will be driving cars that have twice as much power than the Subaru WRX STI rally cars they usually drive.
The cars will be based on the same VT17r chassis as the ones they field in the American Rally Association Championship, but Vermont SportsCar has fitted them with custom engines. The 600-horsepower 2-liter turbocharged in-line fours are based on the engines in the STI racers that Chris Atkinson and Patrik Sandell use in Red Bull Global Rallycross. Other modifications to the hillclimb-spec versions of the STI include new brakes, suspension and dampers, as well as a 400-pound reduction in weight.
Thumbnail photo via Subaru
