Subaru WRX Race Car Sets New Mount Washington Hillclimb Record

Subaru Motorsports USA has once again rewritten the record books at one of America's most storied hillclimb events. Driver Scott Speed piloted the team's radical WRX Project Midnight up Mount Washington's famous Auto Road, posting an outright record time that eclipsed the previous benchmark by more than sixteen seconds. The run capped a weekend clouded by fog and compressed by a shortened qualifying schedule, yet Speed and his crew still found the pace to rewrite history on New Hampshire's 6,288-foot peak.

A New Benchmark on an Historic Climb

The Mount Washington Auto Road has hosted the Climb to the Clouds hillclimb, officially the Paul Giblin Memorial Climb to the Clouds, for well over a century, making it one of the oldest motorsport events in the United States. Competitors face 7.6 miles (12.2 km) of relentless switchbacks, sheer drop-offs, and rapidly changing weather as they race from the base of the mountain to its summit.

Scott Speed's winning run stopped the clock at 5 minutes, 11.982 seconds, a new outright record for the course. The previous best belonged to Travis Pastrana, who reached the top in 5 minutes and 28.67 seconds back in 2021 aboard the 862-horsepower Airslayer STI, itself built on WRX STI underpinnings. Speed's margin of victory over that mark, 16.688 seconds, is a substantial improvement for a course where records are typically broken in fractions of a second.

Fog, a Shortened Run, and One Shot at the Summit

Conditions were far from ideal on the day of the record attempt. Thick fog blanketed the upper reaches of the mountain, forcing organizers to cut the first Sunday session short, limiting competitors to only a partial run up the access road. That left drivers with just a single attempt to complete the full course later in the day, adding considerable pressure to an already unforgiving event.

Unlike Pastrana's 2021 record, set partly on a mixed-surface road, this year's run took place on a Mount Washington Auto Road that has since been fully paved. The smoother, entirely asphalt surface allowed the Project Midnight WRX to lean on its circuit-honed handling characteristics for the entire climb, rather than compromising the setup for loose sections. Specially developed Yokohama Advan A005 slick tires also played a major role in generating the mechanical grip needed to attack the mountain's countless corners at speed.

Five Records in Five Years

This victory was not an isolated result. It marked the fifth consecutive outright record set by Subaru Motorsports USA at Mount Washington across the team's last five appearances at the event. That streak underscores how deliberately Subaru has targeted this specific hillclimb as a proving ground for its most extreme competition machinery, using the mountain to showcase both the pace of its cars and the consistency of its motorsport program.

Inside the WRX Project Midnight

The car responsible for the new record, WRX Project Midnight, was developed by engineering specialist Vermont SportsCar, the same operation behind many of Subaru's rally and rallycross programs over the years. The car made its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2024, where it was presented as the fastest competition WRX ever built by the brand's motorsport division.

Beneath its aggressive, track-focused aerodynamic bodywork sits a 670-horsepower turbocharged boxer engine, a huge leap over anything found in a road-going WRX. Extensive use of carbon fiber throughout the chassis and body panels keeps the car's curb weight down to just 1,120 kg (roughly 2,469 lbs), giving it a power-to-weight ratio more in line with a purpose-built race car than a road car derivative. That combination of a high-output flat-four and a featherweight carbon structure is what allows Project Midnight to attack a course like Mount Washington with the ferocity needed to set outright records.

What This Means for the Road-Going WRX

While Project Midnight is a bespoke, race-only machine that shares only its silhouette and badge with showroom cars, Subaru's competition program still tends to hint at the brand's broader direction. In June, Subaru released a teaser image showing three upcoming models united by one detail: all three would be offered with manual transmissions. One of those models is expected to be a WRX sedan equipped with the TY85 six-speed manual carried over from the previous-generation WRX STI, a detail that will please enthusiasts who have watched manual availability shrink across the segment.

It is a reminder that even as Subaru pushes the extremes of what a WRX-badged car can do on a closed hillclimb course, the brand is simultaneously working to keep some of that enthusiast DNA alive in its production lineup.

Renting a Sports Sedan in the UAE

Hillclimb legends like the WRX Project Midnight are built for closed-course competition, not everyday roads, but drivers in the UAE who want a taste of serious performance don't have to look far. RentCarUAE's fleet includes genuinely quick, driver-focused machines such as the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT, a car that shares the same spirit of high-output power delivery and track-bred handling that makes cars like Project Midnight so thrilling to watch in action. Whether it's a weekend drive along Jebel Jais or simply the desire to experience serious performance on UAE roads, booking a car like the AMG GT offers a real connection to the kind of engineering passion Subaru's motorsport program puts on display at Mount Washington every year.

Why Hillclimbs Remain a Pure Test of Speed

Unlike circuit racing, where drivers can learn from repeated laps and adjust their approach corner by corner, a hillclimb offers no such luxury. Every run is effectively a one-shot qualifying lap against the clock, with no margin for error on roads bordered by guardrails, cliffs, and unpredictable mountain weather. That format rewards not just outright horsepower, but also precision, car control, and a driver's ability to commit fully to a course they may only see a handful of times before the record attempt. It's part of what makes results like Speed's run at Mount Washington so significant within the wider motorsport community, since success there depends on getting everything right in a single, uninterrupted push to the summit.

For spectators and fans following along from afar, records like this also serve as a marketing showcase, connecting a manufacturer's motorsport pedigree to the cars sold in showrooms and available for rent around the world. Even though the average driver will never get behind the wheel of a 670-horsepower carbon-bodied hillclimb special, the halo effect of events like Climb to the Clouds keeps enthusiasm for performance-oriented models alive, whether that's a manual WRX STI on dealer lots or a high-powered GT car parked in a UAE rental fleet.