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Private Notes
You only truly know how to accomplish something once you have actually done it. Turning points and opportunities are only fully recognized with hindsight.
So, for a team as experienced as Subaru Rally Team USA, reverse engineering a championship title should be straight forward. Except it never is.
Thousands of circumstances and decisions led to this moment, and no two seasons will offer the same opportunities. Experience might form the road map to a title, but it's a road map already out of date. The 2014 championships bring new competition, new events, and new cars. A new road awaits.
This is Season Two of Launch Control.
At the Vermont Sports Car facility, the team is putting the finishing touches on a completely new rally car for David Higgins. But before this car is even finished, the next project is already waiting in the wings. Before it has even been revealed to the public, a brand-new twenty-fifteen STI has been delivered for initial engineering development. With only a handful of these in existence, the team is excited to get its first glance of what will eventually become their new rally and rallycross platform. It gets little attention for the moment, however. A complete tear down of the rallycross cars, and final testing of the 2014 rally cars occupies the entire team.
Ice-covered roads, studless tires, and minus twenty degree temperatures greet the teams on race day at Michigan's Sno*Drift Rally. Cold is an understatement. Sno*Drift is once again the opening round of the 2014 Rally America Championship.
For Subaru Rally Team USA, the challenge is doubled. Teething issues with new rally cars can easily ambush a team's event. The cold only increases the stress on the car and its parts.
Despite the team's confidence, a degree of uncertainty lingers under the calm surface. Can the team start the season off with a win, or will problems derail their efforts?
With the 2014 Global Rallycross season still two months away, the Subaru team is in Atlanta testing the new cars for Sverre Isachsen and Bucky Lasek. After three full days, the team and drivers are happy with progress and hopes are high for the upcoming season.
Flashback to 2010, and Launch Control revisits Travis Pastrana's last race in a Subaru before pursuing opportunities in Nascar. Fighting through the pain of a shattered leg, he makes the final race thanks to hand throttle controls fabricated by Vermont Sports Car overnight. This is Travis Pastrana, the never-say-never, in it to win it X Games Legend.
In February 2014, Pastrana makes his return to the seat of a Subaru rally car. He joins David Higgins at the pre-event test before Missouri's Rally in the 100 Acre Wood. As the event starts, Travis arrives at Parc Expose and is instantly surrounded by media and fans eager to get their first glimpse of the returning star. But when all the autographs are done, and the fanfare has subsided, it all comes down to who is fastest on the road.
Whether the motivation is simply a personal best... the top step of the podium... easing back into the sport... or defending a championship title...it all starts the same way. 5....4....3....2....1.....
The definition of success varies from one person to another. The same goes for Subaru Rally Team USA drivers, Travis Pastrana and David Higgins.
Pastrana is making his return to rally, and is hoping to ease his way back into a sport that he once used to dominate. Higgins is out for victory. They are approaching the event with different benchmarks for success. But in a sport where so many things can go wrong, it is almost impossible for everything to go right.
Travis Pastrana is racing a new car, with a new co-driver... nursing an injured ankle, and recalibrating to the intricacies of rally. It's a tall order. Add in the high speeds of the roads here in Missouri, and #199 can be excused for being off the pace early on. It's to be expected.
David Higgins and Craig Drew need no time to adjust. They won this event last year, but the event favorite, Ken Block, suffered a DNF that cut the battle short. Both teams know their competition isn't going to ease into the day gradually, so it means driving flat out form the word "go". This is the battle for the 2014 Rally in the 100 Acre Wood...
With the first two events in the 2014 Rally America Championship complete, Subaru Rally Team USA has claimed two podium finishes; a win at SnoDrift Rally for David Higgins, and 2nd Place for Travis Pastrana at the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood. Now, the team's focus shifts to the third round of the Rally America Championship, the Oregon Trail Rally, where the goal is to get both Subaru team cars on the podium together.
The Oregon Trail Rally was the second event back with the Subaru team for Travis Pastrana after over three years away from the sport. Pastrana has been getting up to speed with his new 2014 Subaru WRX STI while working for the first time with veteran co-driver Chrissie Beavis. The duo were clearly another step faster in Oregon and took the lead of the event early, winning three of the four stages held on day one.
David Higgins and co-driver Craig Drew hit trouble early on the second day, dropping over a minute to Pastrana in the process. As Higgins began to charge back he was then hit with time penalties for hitting cones in a chicane, thus putting himself even farther behind Pastrana. Higgins found himself still nearly 40 seconds adrift of Pastrana at the start of the final day.
Higgins and Drew had just six stages covering 40 miles to make up those 40 seconds and they went flat out to do so. The battle goes down to the final stages...who would emerge victorious in the battle of the teammates?
Hard Competition. Hard knocks. Hard work. This has been Subaru's learning curve thus far in Global Rallycross. But 2014 will be different. It has to be. Early season testing has given the team confidence and a hunger for results.
In Barbados for the season opening round of the 2014 Red Bull Global Rallycross Championship, Subaru Rally Team USA driver Sverre Isachsen enthralled a capacity crowd. In the Final, Isachsen in the #11 Subaru WRX STI became locked in a thrilling duel for third overall with rival Nelson Piquet Jr. The two drivers battled each other with tight door-to-door racing that brought the crowd to their feet. Top Gear Festival Barbados set the scene for relentless racing, and the team departs with just days to prepare for the next event back in America.
Iconic X Games Skateboarding athlete Bucky Lasek earned his 20th career X Games medal in Austin, Texas but it wasn't earned atop a skateboard. Instead, Bucky earned this medal behind the wheel of his 600hp Subaru WRX STI Rallycross car in a hard fought X Games Rallycross event held at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The action was intense, from the moment the cars arrived back from GRC Barbados to the final chequered flag.
In the same week, Subaru Rally Team USA was also in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania for the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally. David Higgins and Craig Drew were fighting a history of bad luck at this event, but the #75 car along with an armada of privateer Subaru teams took to the forests for round four of the 2014 Rally America Championship.
The third round of the 2014 Red Bull Global Rallycross Championship was held on a purpose built track outside of RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. Subaru Rally Team USA drivers, Bucky Lasek and Sverre Isachsen, began the event brimming with confidence. Nearly two years of development work on the team's Subaru WRX STI rallycross cars have begun to pay off and the team has now proven they have the speed to compete at the top. Lasek starts the weekend at the top of the timesheets, earning the #2 seed. Isachsen qualifies just .4 seconds behind. But in GRC, you never know whats going to happen in the final rounds...
On the same weekend in Europe, the STI team from Japan is tackling a different challenge -- the 24 Hours of Nürburgring race in Germany. Coined the "Green Hell", the 15-mile ribbon of tarmac through the Eifel Forest has seen some of the most grueling racing known to man. Over 200 cars will take the start, and only half are expected to finish. The STI team prepares all year for this challenge, and has brought the 2015 WRX STI here to win.
This is where fate is decided -- 6,288 feet above sea level. Home of the world's worst weather. And one of the nation's oldest motor sport events. New Hampshire, and the legendary Mount Washington Auto Road where 7.4 miles of narrow, death-defying tarmac and dirt cling to the mountain's slopes.
For over 100 years, the Climb to the Clouds race has seen heroes attempt to shatter old records. Today's benchmark to beat is 6 minutes 11 seconds...
With an all-star cast of past and current record holders ready to push the bar one more time, including Subaru Rally Team USA's David Higgins and Travis Pastrana, the seventy-car field is primed. Will a new record be set, or will the field fall short?
Summer is in full swing in the forests of New England, and this weekend the border country between New Hampshire and Maine is filled with rally cars. David Higgins and Craig Drew of Subaru Rally Team USA are on a mission. A fourth consecutive Rally-America Championship title is within their grasp. They will have to negotiate a mix of twisty and tight forest roads filled with car-breaking rocks. But first, they’ll have to beat their teammates, Travis Pastrana and Chrissie Beavis.
On the same weekend, the Global Rallycross series is gearing up in New York at Nassau Colloseum on Long Island. Subaru’s Sverre Isachsen is having an outstanding weekend. Heat wins and unbeatable launches set him up on the front row for the finals. Can this be the team’s first real chance at a win?
The team at Vermont SportsCar works flat out at the shop to prepare the rally and rallycross cars in Vermont before leaving for GRC Charlotte. Bucky Lasek and Sverre Isachsen start the event off with heat wins, but can they convert that to a podium finish?
It is hard to believe that, ten races in, Subaru Rally Team USA is only at the halfway point of their long season. The 2014 Rally America Championship and Red Bull Global Rallycross series combine to make a grueling and hectic year.
Perspective can get lost amidst the chaos. Team owner, Lance Smith is responsible for maintaining that perspective. With the Rally America Championship clinched for another year, and podium finishes becoming more frequent in Rallycross, Lance must now shift his team’s year-long goals to the next phase.
Subaru Rally Team USA heads north to compete in the FIA World Rallycross of Canada to measure their progress against an international benchmark. In a new race format, amongst veteran rallycross teams, Subaru Rally Team USA found proof of their performance. Then, Launch Control travels with Sverre Isachsen to his hometown in Norway as he takes advantage of his limited time at home to take care of some business and retreat to the mountains.
The mid-season reprieve is over, and it’s all hands on deck at Subaru Rally Team USA with a two car rally team in Minnesota for the Ojibwe Forest Rally, and two cars in Daytona for Red Bull Global Rallycross. It’s a weekend of highs and lows, but the team pulls together across the States to bring Subaru a double header result.
Subaru Rally Team USA fights through a challenging Red Bull Global Rallycross double-header weekend in Los Angeles with team drivers Sverre Isachsen, Bucky Lasek and guest driver Travis Pastrana. After a long, hard weekend, and a promising result in their back pocket, the team drives north to Dirtfish Rally School near Seattle, Washington for their third rallycross event in two weekends. They are joined by David Higgins, and one turn into the Final, things are looking up for the team...
In Part Two of the season finale, Subaru Rally Team USA watches as Sverre Isachsen battles to the finish line against Joni Wiman - can he hold on for the team’s first Global Rallycross win? Then, in Las Vegas, Bucky Lasek, adds an exclamation mark to the season by coming back from a big crash in the Finals. It’s been a long journey and a tough season, but the progress and success is undeniable. Throw the old road map out the window, because Subaru Rally Team USA is heading into new territory.
