HIGGINS HUNGRY FOR MORE US SUCCESS

GROUP RALLYING EDITOR

Despite clinching an eighth American title, Manxman David Higgins’ appetite for Stateside success remains as strong as ever and he’ll return next year in search of more victories.

Higgins’ fourth win of the season at last month’s Ojibwe Forests Rally was enough to put him out of reach of his nearest challenger with one Rally America round remaining this year.

Success in Minnesota sealed his sixth straight title and his 27th win from 41 Rally America starts since he returned to the series with Subaru Rally Team USA in 2011.

Higgins had already won the SCCA Pro Rally title with Mitsubishi in 2002 and 2003. With talk of a breakaway American rally series next season, Higgins’ precise plans for 2017 remain unclear apart from the fact that he’ll be back behind the wheel of his WRX STI.

“It could be that we do all of one series or the other,” he said. “Or we could do all of them both or just selected rounds. At the moment I don’t know and I’m not too worried about that. I’m working with a fantastic team, we have a great car and the rallies are all on amazing roads. Yes, it would be nice to do some stuff outside of America – we did look at doing some events in New Zealand and using Subaru’s Launch Control [Youtube] channel to market the programme – but we’re about selling cars in America.”

While the mainstay of his 2017 programme will be rallying, it remains possible Higgins could switch to Subaru USA’S Global Rallycross effort.

“I’d also like to do some rallycross,” said Higgins. “I’ve done some testing for the team and the cars are very interesting – that could give me more of a personal challenge.” ● Former Subaru World Rally Team driver Chris Atkinson made his GRC debut with Subaru USA in Atlantic City at the end of last month, where he made the final but retired with a puncture.