Flat out in the Subaru Brataroo: Top Gear's guide to hooning

The quote also demands respect because it comes from Travis Pastrana, who has taken up the challenge of ever more insane Gymkhanas since the tragic death of Ken Block. And Travis Pastrana’s crazy scale isn’t like ours. Or anyone else’s, honestly.

Photography: Mark Riccioni

This is a dude who pointed his motorbike over a ramp leading into the great abyss of the Grand Canyon aged 18, landed the first ever double backflip on a dirt bike at the X Games in 2006, jumped out of a plane without a parachute in 2008, launched a Subaru Impreza off the Pine Street Pier in Long Beach California and landed 82 metres later on a floating barge, and is now roughly composed of 87 per cent metal.

Pastrana is also an incredibly nice guy. And today I’m driving his Brataroo, star of Gymkhana 2025: Aussie Shred. He’s also setting me a number of challenges so I get to experience its full potential. Or at least as much of its full potential as somebody who doesn’t even fancy the glass-bottomed Grand Canyon Skywalk can hope to access.

The basics of the car are simple but mouth-watering. Built by Vermont SportsCar, the motorsports technical partner of Subaru USA, around a WRC-spec chassis and safety cage, the Brataroo might be inspired by a 1978 Subaru Brat but it’s a long way from the original.

The wide body shape is all carbon fibre and features active aero, which is mostly used to trim the car’s trajectory in flight. The engine is a 2.0-litre flat four with a machined from billet block that goes to 9,500rpm and produces 670bhp and 680lb ft. There’s also a six-speed sequential Sadev gearbox, hydraulic handbrake for max angle and a 50:50 torque-split 4WD system with locking diffs for max smoke.

CHALLENGE 1: FIGURE IT OUT

Travis Pastrana: Hey Jethro, sorry I can’t be there, but you did such a good job with the Huckster (see the film on TG’s YouTube channel) that I’m going to trust you with the legendary Brataroo. Now, this baby is a little more highly strung – the rpms are higher, there’s a more defined power band. And it’s ready to rock. So, to start with, just feel it out.

Jethro Bovingdon: Well, that sounds easy... getting in requires a lot of folding and the seat is super tight. But what a cool environment. There’s a wood-effect flax-composite for the full carbon fibre dash, aping the ’78 Brat. The HVAC looks original but now controls the active aero, including Ranch, Track, Send and Full Send modes. The dash start-up graphics are 8-bit perfection and there’s a thick column of carbon fibre for the sequential box and a slimmer handle for the hydraulic handbrake. Simple.

CHALLENGE 2: FULL SEND LAUNCH

TP: OK, it’s time to do a launch and in triple Gymkhana Ken Block fashion, you’re going to have to go off the limiter on everything. But, to get a good time you need to watch those shift lights. And they’re going to come up fast. It’s like a two-stroke...

JB: The Brataroo’s sequential dog ’box is perfectly brutal. Yank the thick carbon fibre lever backwards to change up, smash forwards to change down.

Travis doesn’t even bother to use the clutch or rev match. With 670bhp and geared for just 145mph or so, this thing eats gears and seems to be at the 9,500rpm limiter in the blink of an eye. That’s not really the problem, though. And a big flame-inducing hard cut of the limiter feels, um, triple Gymkhana Ken Block fashion. I think. The problem is the launch control itself is fiendishly complex.

In theory, I depress the clutch, select first, press the button atop the handbrake with my thumb and pull it back as far as it will go and hold it. Next, floor the throttle and slowly bring the clutch up so it takes the strain and starts to lower the revs. Watch the dash lights. As the revs drop the display will go from red to green. Now, release the lever and drop the clutch at the same time and be ready to pull gears.

Too many revs and the wheels spin on the spot, the engine pings off the limiter immediately and it all sounds even more tortuous than it should. Too few? Not sure. I always have too many. And never really nail it. It’s a bit embarrassing. Wow, does this thing rip, though. It’s soooo fast and unbelievably manic.

CHALLENGE 3: KILL THE TYRES

TP: The Brataroo absolutely obliterates tyres. How fast can you kill a set of Yokohamas?

JB: I’ve seen first hand how good Pastrana is at this particular art. Back in ’25 I drove and rode shotgun with him in The Family Huckster (Travis’ last Gymkhana car, inspired by a 1983 Subaru GL wagon but with a similar rally spec chassis and an even stronger 862bhp boxer engine). I think he killed one set in under 45 seconds. And nearly destroyed my inner balance system for years to come.

The technique is simple: pull away quickly, select second and get to a decent speed, tug the handbrake and absolutely SMASH the throttle wide open. No opposite lock. Just use the four-wheel drive system to spin you round faster and faster and faster. If you can get up to third, fourth or even fifth gear you will murder a set of tyres. And probably become reacquainted with your last few meals. Unfortunately, there’s so much smoke it’s very hard to know where you are. Or, indeed, where the camera team are.

Pastrana manages to mostly stay pinned in position. Rotating within the car’s own length. But this takes a good amount of practice and I have none.

So, whilst I get the motion pretty well, the car does drift to the right of the runway. No matter, there’s smoke, revs, flames and tyre death. I don’t beat 45 seconds. But around 90 seconds isn’t too bad and I somehow keep my lunch. It feels deeply gratuitous and my brain is constantly trying to feather the throttle and correct the alien sliding on the spot sensation. But Travis’ words from that day in the Huckster ring in my ears. “The answer is always more throttle. I promise you. Whatever is happening... more throttle.”

CHALLENGE 4: PRECISION

TP: Alright, bravo, bravo. But, let’s be fair. Anyone can blow off a set of tyres with this much horsepower. So, now, I want to see a big drift into a donut. Then keep it lit and hold that donut as close as possible to a target.

JB: In Gymkhana terms we’ve seen this a million times. The car’s front bumper rotates within a few centimetres of a stack of tyres/a human on a Segway etc. It seems like one of the ‘basic’ tricks, but turns out to be one of those counterintuitive disciplines that requires a proper brain out Pastrana approach.

Getting the Brataroo to drift is easy – lots of lock and power will do it, or a timely pull of that handbrake – but the super revvy engine doesn’t have a huge power band and so keeping all four wheels spinning and the appropriate amount of tyre smoke is much trickier than in the Huckster. Plus, not having the practical demo of Travis on hand does considerably slow the learning process. Gymkhana is such a weird form of motoring ballet crossed with UFC that sometimes you have to see and feel the correct technique before you truly ‘get’ it.

Anyway, excuses done. At first I find myself using my normal oversteer brain to delicately balance the throttle to maintain the car’s trajectory, but that target – in our case a stack of tyres – slips further and further away and the drift circle gets bigger and bigger. In scale it’s more giant rubber ring than perfectly sized Krispy Kreme. But with time comes the lightbulb moment. You need ALL the throttle to drive the car into that target. It’s literally a virtuous circle. More throttle, more smoke, greater stability for the donut and absolute precision. There really is method to Travis’ madness.

CHALLENGE 5: HIGH SPEED DRIFT

TP: Assuming you made it to this point... congratulations! But, the Brataroo is built for speed. So, let’s see an absolute full send smoke show of a high speed drift.

JB: There’s nothing more thrilling, more dramatic and more stupid than a tyres-on-fire high speed drift in the Brataroo. It’s where the car feels best and where the driver feels most heroic. This car is an overwhelming experience. The steering is pretty light and precise, the ’box is tough and physical but sort of familiar from old school racecars, but everything else is alien.

The flat four engine is so raucous and so angry. It spits wicked flames through the almost non-existent exhaust that vents through the bonnet, the active aero is always dancing away in your peripheral vision and the smells of smoke, burning fuel and the immense artillery and rapid gunfire of the rev limiter just add to the manic, out of control feeling. The suspension is soft, too. So the Brataroo pitches and rolls where a modern sports car would feel locked down. It’s a kind of gravel setup on tarmac and gives a brilliant picture of the weight shifting around but also creates a kind of bucking bronco sensation.

But, the high speed drift really – finally! – is an easy thing to master. Simply pull through the gears into fourth, take notice of the apex ahead and then disregard how you’d normally hit it. Instead, turn the steering wheel hard right and pull the handbrake waaaaayyy before the conventional turn-in point, enter the turn basically backwards with the throttle fully open, the tyres melting under the high speed, high rev strain but the car absolutely in its sweet spot. What a machine. The only real ‘skill’ is keeping track of where you are through the heavy smoke.

CHALLENGE 6: REVERSE ENTRY

TP: I wanna see a reverse entry. We started working on it in the Huckster, but didn’t have a lot of room for this one. Now, at the TG test track, you have an entire runway. So, rev limiter in third gear, clutch in, handbrake, down one gear, drop the clutch before it’s backwards so we don’t drop the transmission. Then wide open, second gear, full backwards. Oh, and let’s put a cone down to see how close you can get the front to it on exit...

JB: So, the steps to nailing the perfect reverse entry are laid out in black and white. And it is a brilliant, spectacular stunt. Ken Block’s reverse entry in the Audi S1-style Hoonitron in Las Vegas is one of the iconic stunts in the Gymkahana series. He’s backwards for hundreds of metres with smoke billowing and then slots the car neatly between two traffic islands.

(Incidentally, Ken was super precise about these stunts and would test at airfields and measure the optimum distances before translating them to the real Gymkhana location. Pastrana, in contrast, does it all by feel and his Full Sendysenses). However, I’m watching Travis’ instructions on an iPhone on a blindingly hot day and surrounded by the general noise, stress and time pressures of a shoot.

And, for reasons unknown, I hear “so, rev limiter in second gear”. Instead of third. It doesn’t feel right, but who am I to question the King of Shred? In the event this doesn’t provide enough speed to fully nail the reverse entry and when I do finally try a third gear approach it’s miles better but I’m not channelling my inner Pastrana as effectively. The engine builder has warned me off hitting the limiter too much. So, my reverse entry is pretty limp. I mean, there’s smoke, flames and chaos. But I feel like this one is a bit of a fail according to Pastrana’s impossibly high standards.

CHALLENGE 7: STIG LAPS

TP: Now that you’ve had all the fun, I want to see how fast this goes. I know where you are, I know who’s with you. Let’s see how the Brataroo compares on the Top Gear leaderboard.

JB: Stig has no problem with the launch control. He’s on it from lap one and if that unmoving white helmet could smile, I think it would be beaming. The Brataroo is a rampant combination of raw power, incredibly adjustable handling and – when running the Yokohama slicks – real precision and high grip. It hits a peak speed of 147.6mph just before Hammerhead, achieves a peak cornering force of 1.22g.

So often the highest performance cars require a lot of fettling at the TG track, but the Brataroo – essentially a one-off prototype – doesn’t miss a beat. It’s fast, too. It sets a time of 1m 11.9s. That’s quicker than, well, almost everything. Admittedly it’s on slick tyres but to beat a Ferrari 488 Pista by eight-tenths, destroy a Porsche 991 GT2 RS, Pagani Huayra, Dallara Stradale and only lose out to Aston Martin’s spaceship Valkyrie and the Koenigsegg Jesko Attack, is pretty remarkable.

Full respect to Vermont SportsCar, you’ve built a monster.