The king of ‘Millen’s Mile’, Alister McRae has proved he is a hard man to beat up the Leadfoot Festival driveway with a hat-trick in the Vantage Motorsport-owned, ex-Possum Bourne 1998 Subaru WRX STI. The defending champion will be aiming to make it four this weekend and helping him achieve this will be the fact that along with the three previous wins at Leadfoot, Alister has also used the Vantage Subaru to win Race to the Sky in 2015 and the Ashley Forest Rallysprint in 2018, being the first international driver to do so. Although it was only his first time competing at the Canterbury forest event, he beat some stiff competition in the form of WRC driver Hayden Paddon and Leadfoot arch rival Sloan Cox.
Sloan is back this year and would dearly love to best the huge-horsepower Subaru, with his similarly-potent Mitsubishi but he has some history to contend with.
Scottish rally legend, Alister blazed up the 1.6km Coromandel-based hill climb last year in a blistering time of 47.99secs in his Vantage Subaru. It bettered his 2018 time of 49.15secs, showing that Alister can increase the pace each year.
“It’s going to be great to be back behind the wheel of the Vantage Subaru at Leadfoot. The car is a monster and the venue is an amazing place to drive at – and having won the last three years, the pressure is going to be on. The boys at Speedhub are constantly refining the car so hopefully we can drop the time even further this year. The competition gets tougher each year ” Alister says.
Alister’s been spending more time watching son Max behind the wheel, rather than driving himself, but with an outing in Belgium in a MKII Escort and continued testing he should be match fit.
Alister McRae - 1998 Vantage Motorsport Subaru WRX
The king of ‘Millen’s Mile’, Alister McRae has proved he is a hard man to beat up the Leadfoot Festival driveway with a hat-trick in the Vantage Motorsport-owned, ex-Possum Bourne 1998 Subaru WRX STI. The defending champion will be aiming to make it four this weekend and helping him achieve this will be the fact that along with the three previous wins at Leadfoot, Alister has also used the Vantage Subaru to win Race to the Sky in 2015 and the Ashley Forest Rallysprint in 2018, being the first international driver to do so. Although it was only his first time competing at the Canterbury forest event, he beat some stiff competition in the form of WRC driver Hayden Paddon and Leadfoot arch rival Sloan Cox.
Sloan is back this year and would dearly love to best the huge-horsepower Subaru, with his similarly-potent Mitsubishi but he has some history to contend with.
Scottish rally legend, Alister blazed up the 1.6km Coromandel-based hill climb last year in a blistering time of 47.99secs in his Vantage Subaru. It bettered his 2018 time of 49.15secs, showing that Alister can increase the pace each year.
“It’s going to be great to be back behind the wheel of the Vantage Subaru at Leadfoot. The car is a monster and the venue is an amazing place to drive at – and having won the last three years, the pressure is going to be on. The boys at Speedhub are constantly refining the car so hopefully we can drop the time even further this year. The competition gets tougher each year ” Alister says.
Alister’s been spending more time watching son Max behind the wheel, rather than driving himself, but with an outing in Belgium in a MKII Escort and continued testing he should be match fit.
1998 Vantage Motorsport Subaru WRX:
The Subaru WRC has won at the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Leadfoot Festivals and was second here in 2016. It also won the South Island’s iconic Ashley Forest Rally Sprint in 2018. It is an ex-Prodrive Subaru 1998 WRC car, which was driven and crashed at Rally New Zealand by Finnish driver Kuha Kangas in 1999. It was then purchased by Possum Bourne. In 2001, after rebuilding the car, Possum drove it to victory at Race to the Sky. In 2003, Vantage Motorsport purchased the car after Possum’s death.