Watch Subaru’s Record-Breaking Isle of Man Lap From the Driver’s Point-of-View
Ride along as Mark Higgins talks you through his record run.
Subaru's Isle of Man Time Attack WRX STI is, presumably, outfitted some sort of special seat—one with a sizeable divot for the large pair of personal titanium spheres needed to hit more than 170mph while threading the needle around the Isle of Man's TT circuit. Four motorcyclists died on the course this year alone, but hey, Subarus have a good safety ratings, right?
However, after seeing the view from an onboard camera, maybe the Subaru needs a special seat for the passenger too—an absorbent one. Holy sweet Saint Joey of Ballymoney, but does this specially-prepared Subaru STI fly. Cracking off a 17 minute, 35.359 second run around the course at an average speed of 128.73 mph, driver Mark Higgins shows great skill and a near-complete disregard for personal safety. Not that you'd know it, based on his narration.
"And now it gets really fast," his remarkably calm voice says over the footage. "All the way to Greeba. The only corner in the middle of that is Ballagarey, or Ballascarey, as we all name it."
The car itself is equally bonkers, with a 600-hp flat four that revs to 8500 rpm and 14-inch, six-piston brakes. Higgins makes the most of both, screaming the turbo-boxer up through the revolutions on the TT's numerous flat-out sections. There's also a F1-style drag reduction system which switches the angle of the rear spoiler, trading top speed for reduced rear downforce. As Higgins gets more comfortable in the car, you can see the red DRS light being deployed more often.
And to think this was slated to be a shakedown run, and that Higgins would likely have run even faster if fatalities hadn't caused a later run to be cancelled. Isle of Man? They should call this place the Isle of the Mad.