Rally America champion David Higgins continued his march toward a perfect, undefeated season with a victory at the Ojibwe Forests Rally in northern Minnesota over the weekend.
The Manxman and co-driver Craig Drew fended off their hard-charging Subaru teammates Travis Pastrana, and Chrissie Beavis to continue their 100 per cent record this year.
The victory was Higgins’ seventh consecutive win this season at the wheel of his DMACK Tires-shod 2015 Subaru WRX STI rally car.
Higgins has just one round remaining, the Lake Superior Performance Rally (October 16-17), in his bid to be the first driver since rally legend and current Subaru team manager John Buffum in 1987 to complete a perfect season in the USA.
Higgins’ victory was anything but easy after his weekend got off to a rocky start with a tyre puncture that lost him over a minute to Pastrana.
However, thanks to a masterful display of driving, Higgins went flat-out on Friday’s three night stages and clawed back his time deficit and then some, leapfrogging into the lead, where he stayed for the remainder of the weekend.
‘It’s a combination of everything: the work our team puts in, the work we put in, the car, everything,’ said Higgins at the podium.
‘A lot of it is earned confidence as well: like (Friday night) we lost a lot of time to a puncture, then pushed pretty hard and got back in the lead and had the confidence to do it. It’s been awesome.”’
Former motocross star Pastrana was determined to fight Higgins for victory and showed improved pace and confidence on only his second rally of his limited 2015 competition schedule.
Pastrana won four of the seven forest stages on Saturday and matched Higgins’ pace on several stages.
An impact with a large rock, however, lost Pastrana nearly three minutes early on Saturday which helped keep Higgins unreachable atop the leaderboard.
‘David’s a tough competitor, always, and we knew that coming in. Anytime you can take a stage win or two away from him it’s a big deal!’ said Pastrana.
Higgins and Pastrana will be together again in competition at Red Bull Global Rallycross Los Angeles presented by Subaru Tecnica International on September 12-13.