Catching Up With Mark Higgins

Professional Rally Driver

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If you’ve attended or seen footage of the Isle of Man TT —a motorcycle event so fast and dangerous it’s amazing that modern regulations still have not neutered it—you know about the powerful, 200-mph superbikes. Now imagine a driver cutting a lap of the daunting 37.7-mile open-road circuit in a car, in this case a Pro drive-created, 2,590-pound Subaru WRX STI with a 2.0-liter turbocharged boxer-four making 600 hp. Throw in Dunlop racing slicks, an active rear wing, and a World Rally Championship-based suspension, and you’ve got a serious piece of equipment requiring some real talent behind the wheel.
Rally fans know the name Higgins: David, 43, is a seven-time Rally America champion, and his brother, Mark, 45, is a three-time British Rally titleholder. Both hail from the Isle of Man, where we caught up with Mark after his run—the fastest ever on the course by a car, as it turned out.

AM: How did you begin your racing career?

MH: I started with karting, but we didn’t have a lot of money at the time. No matter how good your talent, it was hard for it to shine through on a racetrack. You’ve got to have the right machinery. Luckily, my grandparents and my parents rallied as a hobby. We could afford to do a couple of rallies a year and, in fact, my first co-driver was my mother.

AM: Your mom?