Subaru Motorsports USA

Subaru Motorsports USA

Founded	2001
Team principal(s)	Lance Smith
Current series	American Rally Association Nitro Rallycross
Former series	Global Rallycross Rally America SCCA ProRally ARX Rallycross
Current drivers	180 Brandon Semenuk 199 Travis Pastrana
Noted drivers	David Higgins Sverre Isachsen Ken Block Bucky Lasek Dave Mirra Travis Pastrana
Teams' Championships	76

Subaru Motorsports USA (formerly known as Subaru Rally Team USA) is  Subaru of America's motorsports arm that participates in events in the United States and its operations are managed by Vermont SportsCar,^[1] previously Prodrive.

History

The team was started in 2000 with cars prepared by Prodrive and raced in the SCCA ProRally championship and continued until 2004. In 2006, the team management was handed over to Vermont SportsCar.^[2]

Since 2001 Vermont SportsCar has had a relationship with Subaru of America who has served as both a sponsor and partner. Subaru utilizes the sport of rallying to promote their line-up of all-wheel drive vehicles, specifically the Subaru Impreza WRX STI which has dominated rallying in both the US and internationally for decades.

Starting in 2006 Vermont SportsCar began managing the operations of Subaru Rally Team USA. In their first year Vermont SportsCar took Subaru Rally Team USA to four straight Rally America National Championship driver's titles with driver Travis Pastrana (2006-2009).

In 2010 the team welcomed Dave Mirra to a full-time role as the team's 2nd driver alongside Pastrana, who was participating in a limited schedule of events. In 2011 Pastrana left the team to pursue NASCAR and was replaced by multi-time British and American rally champion David Higgins. Alongside his co-driver Craig Drew, David drove his WRX STI to 8 National Championships in a 9-year span, including a Perfect Season in 2015.^[3] Pastrana made a return to the team in 2014 and continues to be their main driver for stage rally competition with the American Rally Association.

The team utilizes the Subaru WRX STI and rally prepares the cars nearly entirely in-house at Vermont SportsCar, including the shell prep, roll cages, engines and many of the composite parts. The same highly skilled rally technicians that build each of team's cars at Vermont SportsCar also serve as the service crew that travel to each event.

Although they primarily compete in the American Rally Association National Championship and Americas Rallycross Championship (ARX), the team also competes occasionally in the Canadian Rally Championship, the X Games and the World Rally Championship.

In 2019, the team changed its name to Subaru Motorsports USA along with a revision to the structure of its U.S. racing activities, which now combines stage rally, rallycross, record attempts, off-road racing, and circuit racing under the banner of Subaru Motorsports.^[4] Subaru Motorsports USA has been a seminal force in the rise in popularity of rallying in North America.

Rally

Subaru Rally Team USA participated in Rally America events, Canadian Rally Championship events, and previously participated in the World Rally Championship for a short time. Since taking on the American rally stages they have amassed 15 National Championships (6 with Pastrana, 8 with Higgins). Occasionally, the team has made entries in WRC with Ramana Lagemann at Rally New Zealand in 2003 and David Higgins at Rally GB in 2015.

After four consecutive Rally America driver's championships by Travis Pastrana from 2006–2009, David Higgins took over as the team's lead driver in Rally America competition for the 2011 season.^[5] From 2011–2016 Higgins won six consecutive championships,^[6] including a perfect season in 2015 in which he and co-driver Craig Drew won all eight rallies on the calendar.^[7]

In 2020, after several years with David Higgins as lead driver and occasional part- or full-season campaigns from Travis Pastrana or other guest drivers, Subaru announced a new two-car lineup with Pastrana partnering with Canadian freeride mountain bike athlete and rally driver Brandon Semenuk.^[8]

After a shortened 2020 rally season in which Subaru Motorsports USA failed to win the U.S. rally title for the first time since 2010, the team returned to the top spot in 2021 as Travis Pastrana captured his sixth title and first alongside co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino. Semenuk finished third overall behind Ken Block competing in an independent Vermont SportsCar-prepared Subaru WRX STI run by Hoonigan Racing Division.

The 2021 championship marked the emergence of Brandon Semenuk and co-driver Keaton Williams in a season-long battle with rivals Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino competing in a modified Hyundai i20 WRC.^[9] Semenuk would ultimately win the title in the final rally of the season, earning his first major rally title.^[10]

Rallycross

The team participated in the Global RallyCross Championship and X-Games events until they were replaced by the Americas Rallycross Championship in 2018. In 2006 and 2007, Colin McRae participated in X-Games with the team. He rolled the car due to an awkwardly landed jump, but still managed to finish in second place, right behind Travis Pastrana.

On May 4, 2012, Subaru announced their partnership with Puma and their new rallycross team, Subaru Puma Rallycross Team USA. The three-driver team consisted of Dave Mirra, Bucky Lasek, and Sverre Isachsen.^[11] On September 11, 2013, SRT USA contracted their Global Rallycross effort to two cars, releasing Dave Mirra.^[12] The team eventually made a shift in their lineup switching out Lasek and Isachsen with global rallycross star Patrik Sandell and former Subaru World Rally Team driver Chris Atkinson before the Global RallyCross Championship ended in 2017.

In 2018 IMG founded the Americas Rallycross Championship which effectively replaced GRC. Sandell and Atkinson continued with the team during the transition and added Scott Speed to the roster the following year.

In 2019, Sandell, Atkinson and Speed combined for four Americas Rallycross Championship event victories and won the ARX Teams Championship, the first rallycross championship for Subaru.^[13] After the 2019 season, series promoter IMG announced that ARX would cease operations.

After a 2020 season in which no rallycross events were held due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Subaru Motorsports USA returned to rallycross in 2021 for the first season of the Nitro Rallycross (NRX) series with drivers Scott Speed and Travis Pastrana.^[14] Pastrana and Speed scored three wins out of five events and tied on points for the NRX driver's championship ahead of Timmy Hansen, with Pastrana being named champion due to the series' tiebreak rules.^[15]

Championship wins

Season	Driver	Co-Driver
2001	Mark Lovell	Frank Cunningham
2006	Travis Pastrana	Christian Edstrom
2007	Travis Pastrana	Christian Edstrom
2008	Travis Pastrana	Derek Ringer
2009	Travis Pastrana	Derek Ringer
2011	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2012	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2013	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2014	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2015	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2016	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2017	Travis Pastrana	Robbie Durant
2018	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2019	David Higgins	Craig Drew
2021	Travis Pastrana	Rhianon Gelsomino
2022	Brandon Semenuk	Keaton Williams

Video games

SRT USA heavily appeared in the racing game Colin McRae: DiRT 2 with 2008 drivers Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, and Dave Mirra. The #199 and #40 SRT USA cars also appeared in DiRT 3 Ramana Lagemann's SCCA ProRally #4 rally car appears on the cover Colin McRae Rally 2005. SRT USA cars also are included in RalliSport Challenge, RalliSport Challenge 2, Colin McRae Rally 04, Project Gotham Racing, V-Rally 3, Sega Rally 2006, Enthusia Professional Racing, and Sega Rally Revo. In 2016 both Travis Pastrana and David Higgins appeared in Forza Horizon 3, as DLC.

Despite the fact that SRT USA vehicles were heavily featured in rally video games instead of the one used by the WRC, this is mostly due to licensing issues as WRC had the rights to their own video games at that time which were developed by Evolution Studios.

Racing record

Complete Global Rallycross Championship results

(key)

AWD

Year	Entrant	Car	No.	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	GRC	Points
2011	Subaru Rally Team USA	Subaru Impreza GR WRX STI	40	Dave Mirra	IRW1	IRW2	SEA1 5	SEA2 6	PIK1	PIK2	LA1 6	LA2 5	8th	57
			75	David Higgins	IRW1	IRW2	SEA1	SEA2	PIK1 4	PIK2 2	LA1 3	LA2 7	7th	57
			199	Travis Pastrana	IRW1	IRW2	SEA1	SEA2	PIK1	PIK2	LA1	LA2 4	19th	13

Supercar

Year	Entrant	Car	No.	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	GRC	Points
2012	Subaru Puma Rallycross Team USA	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	11	Sverre Isachsen	CHA 12	TEX 10	LA 10	LOU 13	LV 3	LVC 12							9th	40
			40	Dave Mirra	CHA 9	TEX 11	LA 15	LOU 10	LV 13	LVC 6							12th	35
			75	David Higgins	CHA	TEX	LA 7	LOU	LV	LVC							19th	10
			81	Bucky Lasek	CHA 11	TEX 14	LA 13	LOU 11	LV 8	LVC 7							13th	35
2013	Subaru Puma Rallycross Team USA	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	11	Sverre Isachsen	BRA	MUN1 17	MUN2 8	LOU 6	BRI 4	IRW 3	ATL 3	CHA 8	LV 5				7th	86
			40	Dave Mirra	BRA	MUN1 15	MUN2 14	LOU 13	BRI 11	IRW 15	ATL 4	CHA 12	LV DNS				12th	36
			81	Bucky Lasek	BRA	MUN1 14	MUN2 11	LOU 8	BRI 12	IRW 11	ATL 12	CHA 16	LV 14				11th	49
2014	Subaru Rally Team USA	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	11	Sverre Isachsen	BAR 6	AUS 15	DC 10	NY 8	CHA 2	DAY 5	LA1 10	LA2 4	SEA 1	LV 5			5th	280
			81	Bucky Lasek	BAR 13	AUS 2	DC 11	NY 12	CHA 6	DAY 3	LA1 11	LA2 5	SEA 14	LV 3			8th	215
			199	Travis Pastrana	BAR	AUS 7	DC	NY	CHA	DAY	LA1	LA2	SEA	LV			NC	-
2015	Subaru Rally Team USA	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	11	Sverre Isachsen	FTA 9	DAY1 10	DAY2 11	MCAS 6	DET1 12	DET2 12	DC	LA1 4	LA2 13	BAR1 7	BAR2 12	LV 14	11th	136
			81	Bucky Lasek	FTA 10	DAY1 DNS	DAY2 12	MCAS 7	DET1 11	DET2 8	DC	LA1 DNS	LA2 DNS	BAR1	BAR2	LV 8	12th	88
			199	Travis Pastrana	FTA	DAY1	DAY2	MCAS	DET1	DET2	DC	LA1 7	LA2 6	BAR1	BAR2	LV	NC	NC
2016	Subaru Rally Team USA	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	11	Sverre Isachsen	PHO1	PHO2	DAL	DAY1	DAY2	MCAS1 11	MCAS2 C	DC 11	AC 9	SEA	LA1	LA2	17th	19
			55	Chris Atkinson	PHO1	PHO2	DAL	DAY1	DAY2	MCAS1	MCAS2 C	DC	AC 11	SEA 6	LA1 7	LA2 7	11th	88
			75	David Higgins	PHO1	PHO2	DAL	DAY1	DAY2	MCAS1	MCAS2 C	DC	AC	SEA 9	LA1 6	LA2 9	13th	57
			81	Bucky Lasek	PHO1	PHO2	DAL	DAY1	DAY2	MCAS1 10	MCAS2 C	DC 9	AC 10	SEA	LA1	LA2	15th	34
			88	Toshi Arai	PHO1	PHO2	DAL	DAY1	DAY2	MCAS1	MCAS2 C	DC	AC	SEA	LA1 13	LA2 13	19th	4
2017	Subaru Rally Team USA	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	18	Patrik Sandell	MEM 9	LOU	THO1 6	THO2 5	OTT1 9	OTT2 7	INDY 8	AC1 9	AC2 10	SEA1 7	SEA2 3	LA 3	8th	582
			55	Chris Atkinson	MEM 9	LOU	THO1 7	THO2 3	OTT1 4	OTT2 9	INDY 8	AC1 9	AC2 4	SEA1 3	SEA2 5	LA 9	7th	585

Complete Nitro Rallycross results

Supercar

Year	Entrant	Car	No.	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	Pos	Points
2021	Subaru Motorsports USA	Subaru WRX STi	13	Andreas Bakkerud	UMC 9	ERX 6	WHP	HLN 3	FIR	8th	71
			41	Scott Speed	UMC 5	ERX 1	WHP 3	HLN 2	FIR 3	2nd	219
			199	Travis Pastrana	UMC 6	ERX 2	WHP 1	HLN 1	FIR 4	1st	219
	ZipRecruiter #GONITRO		9A	Chase Elliott	UMC	ERX	WHP	HLN	FIR 8	15th	15
			51	Kyle Busch	UMC	ERX	WHP 4	HLN	FIR	11th	35

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Subaru Rally Team USA.

• Subaru Motorsports USA
• Vermont SportsCar

This page was last edited on 18 January 2024, at 00:21