The Subaru Rally America team displays some phenomenal driving skills. Could you drive over 100 mph on backwoods roads in rural Arkansas? We wouldn't recommend it, but it’s fun to watch someone as skilled as David Higgins doing it on roads very similar to our own. The 2014 Oregon Trail Rally is on twisted roads in Oregon that are so similar to roads in Arkansas it’s uncanny. The folks behind Launch Control put some small cameras inside of David Higgins’ Subaru during one of the stages to give us a perspective on just what it takes to drive rally well.
You can see what we mean in the video below:
It’s hard to take your eyes off of the road in front of the
car when you're watching this video, especially when the amount of information coming through with
the pace notes being read by Craig Draw is so high. But if you watch Higgins
for a moment, you’ll notice just what it takes to drive a Subaru Rally car.
Shifting gears quickly, knowing when to use gears, how to approach a curve,
knowing when to slow down so you can speed back up, later—all of these are
skills that Higgins excels at and it’s easy to see that in the video.
Before you decide to go out and tear it up on backwoods
roads in Arkansas, it’s good to know just what kind of safety precautions rally racers have in place. These Subaru’s aren't just like your family car. After Vermont MotorSports gets ahold of their Subarus
for the season, they transform them into performance machines that can take a
beating. Last year, Ken Block crashed his rally car in the last stage and this harrowing video is a great reminder of what rally drivers risk when they get
behind the wheel.
Subarus are safe cars. Rally driving? That's a "Don't try this at home" experience. Get a similar thrill through the videos instead!
