The race to win this year’s American Rally Association National championship has taken an unexpected twist, as Brandon Semenuk hit a rock and retired from Ojibwe Forests Rally to give Subaru Motorsports USA team-mate Travis Pastrana the lead.
On the second pass of Thorpe Tower, Semenuk clattered into a rock that L2WD class co-driver Ethan Curtis described as being the size of a “small moon” and retired on the spot. Before his DNF, Semenuk had been leading Pastrana by almost half a minute.
Semenuk came into Ojibwe with the chance to wrap up a third consecutive ARA National crown, needing only to outscore Pastrana – who missed Olympus Rally earlier in the season – by five points to mathematically clinch the title.
But the unexpected retirement for Semenuk isn’t the only factor that has suddenly made an intra-team title fight a real possibility. Semenuk has indicated he may miss the season finale, Lake Superior Performance Rally, due to a date clash with Red Bull Rampage, widely considered the most important mountain bike event of the year and one Semenuk is expected to compete in.
Pastrana though was the first to confess he wasn’t in a position to usurp Semenuk on pace alone, after the reigning champion had won every stage before his retirement.
“We had nothing for him to be honest,” Pastrana told DirtFish. “We made some changes. I felt OK driving straighter but we were slower, so I had to go back to old Colin McRae style and keep sending it in.
“I don’t know if you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, or if I need to really go back to the drawing board and start again with notes. Our notes are getting better every week but Brandon is improving so much it’s tough to keep up. He is going so fast that we’re pushing with everything we’ve got. And if it comes to taking a cut or hitting a tree on the outside, we’re going to take a cut every time.”
Both Subarus had retired on the same stage of Oregon Trail Rally after Pastrana clipped a rock, which was then pulled out into the middle of the road for Semenuk to clatter into as next car through. But Pastrana believes that’s not what happened in Ojibwe.
“I don’t think we pulled the rock out that he hit this time, I’m curious to see what the cameras show, but I’m definitely not getting a Christmas card from Brandon this year after two DNFs!”
Conner Martell is driving a previous-generation WRX STI open-class machine prepared by Vermont SportsCar in Ojibwe
Conner Martell, driving an older VT22r-spec WRX STI, was promoted to second place by Semenuk’s demise, two minutes adrift of Pastrana. L4WD leader Javier Olivares was elevated to the final podium position overall and has 1m23.9s in hand over John Coyne’s Hyundai i20 N Rally2. George Plsek completes the top five in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo.
Matthew Dickinson had been battling Olivares early on but crashed his Subaru on stage four. That should have promoted Pat Moro up a place – only for his V8-powered Chevy Sonic to retire on the same stage.
An epic scrap emerged for L2WD honors, with Roberto Ygelsias and Richo Healey split by only two seconds after the first full day of action in the forests.
Yglesias struggled his way through Friday’s opening loop with a throttle response problem on his Ford Fiesta ST but once fixed, he carved into Healey’s advantage and took the lead on Friday’s final stage.
Richo Healey and DirtFish instructor Michelle Miller hold a 10-point lead in the L2WD title race heading into Ojibwe – which they're currently set to extend further
“It turns out when you have power and the power doesn’t cut out randomly, it’s a lot more fun to rally,” said Yglesias. “We’re still being conservative, we’ve had some reliability issues in the past with axles and the gearbox when we’ve run full power.
“We only ran full power on Refuge, which has very good terrain. On the others we dialled it back where it’s so rough and tight, we’re going lower boost. We’ll see where we end up but I think it will be neck and neck until the very end.”
Henry Tabor, who is making his first ARA start of 2024 in Ojibwe, completes the L2WD podium places, a minute and a half adrift of the tight lead battle ahead.
O2WD proved a battle of attrition. Michael Hooper leads despite losing over three minutes from hitting a rock on Friday’s opening stage and puncturing, his first place inherited from Seamus Burke who retired his Ford Escort Mk2 with a suspected driveshaft fault. Keenan Phillips is running second in class, having broken a half shaft that had only been fitted the night before and lost 1m40s in penalties for being late out of service.
