Travis Pastrana took a commanding victory at Lake Superior Performance Rally, the ARA National Championship presented by Kubota season finale, aided partly by an early off for Conner Martell.
After a first win of the season at the previous event, Overmountain Rally Tennessee, Martell was expected to be in prime position to score two wins in a row aboard his Škoda Fabia RS Rally2. But he aquaplaned 3.5 miles into the opening stage of the rally and flipped his car off the road, retiring on the spot.
“We were in the line and all of a sudden – the grass hides most of the turn, we came around already committed – we hit the water and the front went off [line],” Martell explained. “It was a steep ditch, so the car went on its roof.
“Pretty unlucky, to be fair. The beginning of the stage was fine and all of a sudden it went to s***.”
Though Martell would return later with time penalties applied, his hopes of winning were dashed – leaving the door open for other contenders to take either a first overall win of 2025 or potentially a first overall career win.
Conner Martell's rally was turned upside down only 3.5 miles into the event
John Farrow, who won the previous two editions of the LSPR Regional event in class, had stepped up to a rented Ford Fiesta Rally3 for his home round of the championship. Incredibly, he won the opening stage of the rally, albeit via the officials’ room, having lost 10s in the dust of Pat Moro’s Chevrolet Sonic.
By stage two Pastrana was in the lead and by stage three Farrow was out of the running, having hit a tree and limped to the finish. Farrow’s Fiesta had sustained roll cage damage in the tree impact, forcing him to drive directly back to service and retire.
With Farrow out of the running, Pastrana rapidly pulled away from RC2 class battlers Patrick Gruszka and Javier Olivares, who each had one eye on their class title along with the fight for second overall in Michigan.
Farrow had been rapid but his car was too badly damaged after an impact with a tree to continue
Gruszka merely needed to finish to clinch the RC2 title, while Olivares needed both a class win and fastest powerstage time, along with a Gruszka no-score, to lift the crown.
Though Olivares had the early advantage, Gruszka overtook Olivares on Friday evening and the battle was settled on stage 12: though Gruszka limped his Hyundai i20 R5 to the finish with a debeaded rear-left, Olivares also suffered a front right puncture which he stopped to change, costing him four minutes and sealing the deal for Gruszka.
LSPR ringer Greg Bugaj finished fourth overall aboard his Limited 4WD-spec Subaru Impreza, equalling his career-best result in US rallying achieved on the same rally in 2019, 2022 and 2023.
Matt Nykanen put in a heroic shift to seal victory in Open 2WD and fifth overall, dominating the class but suffering a rear suspension failure on the penultimate stage – in addition to running with nine screws in his wrist from surgery six weeks earlier, having broken it two rounds earlier in a crash at Ojibwe Forests Rally.
With only one spare tire in the boot and a long road section between the FF stage in the forests and Marquette’s superspecial, Nykanen nursed his broken BMW 328i all the way to the last stage, at one point resorting to scouring for wood to stop metal from dragging on the road.
Nykanen had to nurse his broken BMW all the way back to Marquette – his efforts would pay dividends
Nykanen’s industriousness was rewarded; SS15 was cancelled for National runners, so simply limping to Marquette in road mode proved enough to wrap up his second class win of the season. But it wasn’t enough to contend for the class title – that went to Seamus Burke and navigator Gary McElhinney in their V8-powered Ford Escort Mk2.
Richo Healey and DirtFish instructor Michelle Miller had been in position to contend for the O2WD title had any misfortune struck Burke but instead their Lexus IS350 was the one to encounter trouble, picking up a puncture on Saturday’s opening stage. Stopping to change it cost them four minutes and any hope of contending for class victory, though they still narrowly beat Burke to second in class.
Moro debuted a new LT1-powered Sonic at LSPR, though retired on stage two with an oil leak. Arek Bialobrzeski took the wheel of the older LS3-spec Sonic and had been running fifth overall for much of the rally, though he would also retire on the notoriously tough SS12.
Henry Tabor finished his ARA National campaign with L2WD victory, having been pipped to the class title by Chris Cyr at the previous round of the season.
Alastair Scully returned to action after his monster crash at Overmountain Rally, where his Hyundai i20 R5 fell down a ravine into a river bed and heavily damaged his car.
Now aboard the Mitsubishi Mirage at the season-opening Sno*Drift Rally, Scully took victory in the Regional event, outpacing Jimmy Pelizzari’s Limited 4WD Subaru Impreza by 14.1s on the final stage to snatch victory by only 2.7s.
