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Subaru readies BRZ RA Racing for Japanese trackdays

As if we needed any more reasons to take a Subaru BRZ to the track, Subaru has just announced that it will be producing a racing-spec version of the car straight from the assembly line. The only problem is that the BRZ RA Racing is being offered for the Japanese domestic market only, and won't be visiting any road courses in the US any time soon.
To get the BRZ ready for some serious track time, Subaru added brake ducts beneath the front fascia, removable tow hooks and an oil cooler behind the grille. Inside, the car gets a factory six-point roll cage (including custom-fit floor mats) and a four-point race harness for the driver. Now we get to pricing where US enthusiasts will get even more miffed. The entire suite of racing add-ons increases the BRZ's price by 31,500 yen, which converts to less than $350 US; the total price of the car converts to right around $31,500 US.
There is a brief press release posted below, which has been translated (somewhat poorly) by Google.

2018 Subaru BRZ Quick Spin Review | Curves required

I had a 2018 Subaru BRZ Limited with a six-speed manual and half a day to play on wet, windy roads hemmed by pine trees in the foothills of a massive mountain range. But Michigan was on my mind. Some cars work everywhere. Michigan's the perfect place to find those that do: The roads are flat and pockmarked, and the seasonal extremes are brutal. It's easy to love a car on one of those bucket-list Alpine passes, but on Michigan roads the car has to work hard to win you over. For example, the MX-5 Miata works in Michigan just fine. It's fun in all conditions in which you can get the rear tires to hook up, and some that you can't. It cheerfully entertains in traffic, on city streets, undulating but uninteresting country roads. Some grand tourers work perfectly well there, too, soaking up enough punishment from the atrocious roadways without battering the occupants. The more voluptuous Aston Martins are particularly good at this trick, and they're plenty entertaining to cruise around in — or mash it flat after a scan of a country intersection shows nothing doing for at least 50 miles in every direction. These cars have more than just compliance — they have a subjective, elusive charm in suboptimal conditions. And the 86 twins, well, aren't Miatas. The car isn't lacking in dynamic ability, of course, but there's a flatness, a one-dimensionality to it. It's simply suffocated, starving for a little bit more. It doesn't have to be this way. Put the 86 in a better situation and its foibles recede but don't disappear. Straight, pock-marked slabs are the death of the thing. So I grabbed one out West, in Washington state where I now live, and fed it revs and curves until I was satisfied that the BRZ works as intended when you keep it happy. And when it's happy, you're happy. The BRZ was on high-performance summer tires, and some of the best roads in Washington are up in the hills currently blanketed by slush and ice, so that was a nonstarter. But there's a windy, weedy little farm road bending through a river valley just 20 minutes from my house. It's got lots of sudden, blind bends — not to mention working farms — so it's not the place to exercise a Corvette Z06. But there are enough turns you can see all the way through to make it fun, and three unbelievable uphill hairpins right at the end. We're talking 15 mph posted speed limit turns, and those signs aren't far off.

Subaru looks back on record-setting WRX STI from 2011 Isle of Man

In what we can only presume/hope is a precursor to the launch of the next-gen WRX STI, Subaru has released three videos now giving us a look back at the history of the STI-badged WRX models. In this third video, Dominick Infante, national manager of product communications at Subaru of America, got ahold of the automaker's 2011 WRX STI that broke records for the Isle of Man TT Challenge a couple of years ago.
In 2011, rally driver Mark Higgins piloted this car to a lap speed record of 115 miles per hour and a lap time record of 19:56.7 around the 37.8-mile course. The race-prepped STI, which Infante refers to as an "STI on steroids," features a beefed-up suspension, a wonderful-sounding open exhaust and the removal of the speed limiter to go with full roll cage and racing seats and harnesses.
Scroll down to see - and hear - new driving footage of this 2011 WRX STI with Infante behind the wheel as well as some race footage from 2011 - including a near-disaster Higgins averted at 150 mph. Also, be sure to check out the previous videos from Subaru for the 1998 Impreza 22B STI and a 2004 WRX STI.