Scott Speed Speeds His Way Up Mt. WashingtonMatthew StrykerThe Mount Washington Auto Road is the sort of place where normal drivers earn a "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" bumper sticker by reaching the top, then spend the descent hoping their brakes hold out. Scott Speed treated its 7.6 mile, 4000-plus-foot climb like a place where nothing could go wrong. And thanks to both his guts and his purpose-built Subaru WRX Project Midnight, he reached the summit last weekend in five minutes and 11.982 seconds That's 16.688 seconds faster than Travis Pastrana's previous record.Speed set the time on Sunday at the 2026 Paul Giblin Memorial Climb to the Clouds, a hill climb first run in 1904—six years before the first Indianapolis 500. His run averaged roughly 88 mph. If you haven't seen the road he drove, that sort of speed is simply absurd; not only is it incredibly narrow, but it rises at a grade of 12 percent on average, and has much steeper sections at the top.That said, there is an asterisk here. Pastrana's 5:28.67 record, set in 2021 aboard the 862-hp Subaru Airslayer STI, came when Mount Washington still included a gravel section; the Auto Road finally finished its decades-long paving project in 2022. A fully paved course is a different animal, especially for a car engineered around slick tires, downforce, and tarmac grip.SubaruStill, a 16.7-second margin isn't a rounding error; Speed absolutely crushed the climb. Moreover, it was Speed's only full-course attempt, due to weather. The result also continues a frankly wild streak for Subaru: since the event returned in 2011, the brand has set the overall record during all five of its appearances. David Higgins did it in 2011 and 2014, while Pastrana reset the benchmark in 2017 and 2021 before Speed took over this weekend.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe Airslayer was a Gymkhana machine that happened to be outrageously quick, but Project Midnight is a more focused sequel, built to flatten lap records and climb hills rather than jump across San Francisco. At Mount Washington, it did exactly what Subaru built it to do. Now if the carmaker would just build something comparable for the public...Oh, and yes, you should watch the onboard video of Speed's run. It makes five minutes and 11 seconds look a whole lot longer.You Might Also LikeIf You Can Only Own One Car, Make It One of TheseThese Are the Most Popular Cars by State