As some of you may or may not know, I love time attack.  Everything about this motorsport discipline greatly intrigues me.  I’ve been following along with several time attack prepped Subaru builds for quite some time.  One that has stood out to me is the STi Type-RA NBR.  I know it’s not a Global or Redline Time Attack competitor, but it was built to break its own record at the Nürburgring – hence the RA which stands for Record Attempt.  In my book, that qualifies as a time attack car.

If you are unfamiliar with the Nürburgring, it is an extremely famous and legendary 12.9 mile race track/road course in the Eifel Mountains of Germany.  Subaru has set records and tested there previously, but nothing like what happened in the summer of 2017 when they set a time of 6:57.5 with Le Mans driver Richie Stanaway behind the wheel.  To put that into perspective, the STi Type RA NBR was faster than the Lamborghini Avendator SV, and half a second slower than Porsche’s 918 Spyder hypercar.  All things considered, those are production cars and this was a one-off race car built for this track in mind.  But seriously, it’s kind of cool to say a Subaru whooped a Lamborghini’s time on the ‘ring.





This car was originally built for the Isle of Man challenge of 2016.  After Mark Higgins crushed that record, they stripped the car back down, and with the Nürburgring in mind as the next plan of attack – they started building an engine.  Prodrive is the lead builder and creator in this project of the record attempt car.  They came up with a WRC-Spec, 600 horsepower 2.0 liter Boxer engine which revs to an astonishing 8,500 rpm, but Prodrive says it’s probably capable of a 9,000 rpm redline.  That is unheard of in the world of Subaru Boxer engines.




After watching videos all about the car, it makes me appreciate the engineering and testing that went behind this once stock, stateside Subaru WRX STi that much more.  I’m not going to explain the majority of the crazy modifications on this car, since the list is just too long.  In the video, he explained the purpose and engineering of the hydraulically activated rear wing, which I found very fascinating.  It allows either the driver to raise it or lower it in milliseconds or allows the ECU, which gets determined by speed, brakes, steering angle, and the accelerator.

To make the car as efficient and as light as possible, modifications such as a relocated windshield wiper motor in the passenger footwell shows the extent they went to get everything as low as they could.  The majority of the body panels have been replaced with carbon-fiber panels, and the full FIA-Spec cage is what gives the car most of the structural rigidity.




Hours on hours have gone into this one-of-a-kind Subaru, which weighs in at 2,425 pounds.  So much of this car gives me inspiration for my own.  Not in terms of the car itself necessarily, but the way it’s been executed.  Everything done to the STi NBR has a purpose – it reminds me that some things matter more than others when all you’re trying to do is go fast.

By Zach Osborne – @momentum.rs

 

Image Sources:

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