--- title: "Taking a Ride with Mark Higgins on the Isle of Man" description: "Ryan packs his bags and goes on the ultimate ride-and-drive for a fan of tarmac rally. And Subarus." date: "2017-05-12" modified: "2017-05-12" authors: - name: "Mike Spinelli" job_title: "VP of Content" link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/mike-spinelli" url: "https://www.thedrive.com/video/10234/taking-a-ride-with-mark-higgins-on-the-isle-of-man" categories: - "News" - "Watch This" tags: - "rally cars" - "Subaru WRX STi" - "Tarmac Rally" --- # Taking a Ride with Mark Higgins on the Isle of Man ![]() *\www.thedrive.com* If you don't have the cojones take a lap of the Isle of Man TT course on a sportbike -- and you know that course takes maximum cojones -- the next best thing is to get a ride with Subaru rally driver Mark Higgins. Higgins holds the four-wheel lap record for the 37.73-mile Mountain course. For the past three years, Subaru has been bringing Higgins and a WRX STI to Isle of Man for a shot at the lap record for cars, and each year Higgins ups the ante. This year, he broke his own lap record, setting a time of 17:35.139, at an average speed of 128.730 mph -- that's only 30 seconds shy of the motorcycle record. He did it in a special STI with a 550-hp WRC engine. In this episode of /MY LIFE AS A RALLYIST, which Ryan filmed during a previous Isle of Man TT outing, he meets Higgins and gets a lap around the TT course. After that, it's over to an airfield where Ryan drives an Impreza N15 (Group N car). Finally, he goes to a tarmac stage to test the new JMR NR4 Subaru STI rally car. Kind of a bucket-list outing for a Subaru guy. Lucky for us, Ryan brought his camera. ## Author A sucker for Ford-era Jaguar XJs and glitchy, early-90s BMW V12s, Mike was the founding editor of car culture site Jalopnik, and a former editor-in-chief of 0-60. He's also a co-host of the TV show /DRIVE on NBC Sports, which can be seen from time to time on NBCSN, usually after midnight. ### Author social links [Instagram]() [Twitter]()