In four weeks time Brett Middleton and co-driver Andrew Benefield will debut the world's first Subaru Forester Turbo Diesel rally car.
The Australian East Coast Bullbars SUV Rally Championship will run for the first time this year and Sydney based team MRT are competing in a Forester Turbo Diesel for the first time at Round One, the East Coast Bull Bars Rally Calder, March 1st to 4th
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As a new addition to the Australian Rally Championship, the SUV championship is designed to encourage a whole new range of vehicles that never were considered in the past.
"We have had all sorts of challenges in preparing this car, having to do all the research and development as well as installing all the rally gear has kept us busy," Brett said.
"Adding the fact that it's our responsibility to support the ECU tuning software here and provide workshop data for their clients, its complicated things even more," Middleton added.
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The 2 litre turbo Subaru boxer diesel, is similar in a lot of ways to MRT's past rally weapon, the Group A Impreza STi. Same capacity, also turbocharged, but now the diesel is direct injection, and high torque and low RPM.
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"I love driving my Group A STi, its a real beast, we still own it, but only use it on special occasions. It costs so much to run. The diesel is the complete opposite, economical, max RPM 3800, really cruisey and so on," Brett said.
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MRT aims to win the SUV Championship and run this model as a test for a year with the aim to complete a full 3 three years in it.
The Forester Boxer diesel, has same suspension as the modern STi rally cars as the platform is the same, MCA 60 mm suspension, Whiteline sway bars and alignment products, EcuTeK custom factory tuned ECU, MoTeC dash data and logger and around 400 NM of torque. Factory stock they are 340 Nm
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"Our aim is consistency and reliability as we progress through the years," Brett said
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In the ARC the team is partnered with Kumho Tyres, MRT, McGrath Foundation, EcuTeK, Whiteline, Shannons, and DBA.
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