In the end, it lasted a stage and a split. How much can we read into Brandon Semenuk’s all-too-brief return to the ARA National Championship last weekend?
First up, when I heard it was happening, I wasn’t convinced. Dropping everything and jumping into a project with just over a week’s notice is just so not Brandon Semenuk. Talking to him before the start, we contemplated that very point and he agreed. But added the consideration that 200 miles aboard a Rally2 made a very compelling argument.
As for Jari-Matti Latvala, forget him. Brandon and co-driver Keaton Williams wouldn’t even be looking at times. They were in Washington on their own journey last week. Then SS1 happened and times were suddenly worth a peek.
Across the 4.77 miles of Taylor Town, the Canadian lifted 3.4 seconds out of Latvala’s Toyota and 6.1s out of the next best time of Tom Williams. And this came in a six-year-old Ford Fiesta Rally2 sitting on tires Semenuk hadn’t run before. What followed, followed: the rear differential overheated, then there was an engine issue, and then there was the decision to pull the plug entirely.
It would be unfair to pin blame on Proworx for the issues with the car with so little time to dig into the Fiesta and give it a good going over before it was set to stage mode. Dan Antcil’s crew put the hours in, but admitted there was always a risk with the car.
Semenuk took a risk leaving Subaru, but proved a major point last week. Here he chats to DirtFish owner Steve Rimmer
“We didn’t know much about the history of the car,” Antcil told DirtFish. “Obviously, we’d looked into the competitive history, but there were some gaps. With such a short timeframe, options and availability of cars made it difficult, but when we heard Latvala was entering I called Brandon and said: ‘Let’s do something…’
“The positive from this is the initial pace, which was amazing for a car of that age against a brand-new Toyota. But there are other positives, such as the interest in the project from people like Mark Rushbrook [Ford Racing’s global director] and, of course, M-Sport.”
M-Sport’s Tim Jackson is one of the world’s most renowned rally engineers. But he can’t work miracles. Jackson had the issues sussed quickly, but in a deal pulled together so late, there wasn’t exactly a comprehensive spares package to lean on. From the start, he was impressed with what he saw from Semenuk though.
“Any driver stepping into a program reasonably last minute is faced with a decision to make at the pre-event test,” said Jackson. “It’s a balance between using that time to learn the car, find a set-up and get comfortable or work more with the tires. That was further complicated by a full wet test and bone-dry rally.
“Brandon has shown he has the pace, he’s proved what he can do – that’s a big box ticked. The car was old and there were some issues, but it was still capable of beating a brand-new Corolla. That’s good.”
Nobody knew what to expect on Friday afternoon, least of all Semenuk.
“Tim’s right about the test,” said Semenuk. “There were a bunch of things I would like to have tried. Tim had brought a really good set-up to the table. We made some changes to that and I’d say we had the car around 80% of what we could have got out of it and then we were working with the tires.
“The first stage was new. I’d never driven it before. It was a level playing field. Yes, I’ve done the event a few times before, but Jari-Matti had done some testing on these roads as well last year. And he’s Jari-Matti Latvala… I definitely wasn’t going crazy in there. I was pushing, of course, but still feeling everything out – probably the same approach from him.
“But, you know, we came out and we were three up. We weren’t three behind him. I’ve done this championship for so many years without any major competition, then we get here and it’s go. Yes, he probably would have got away from me, but at least we would have had somebody to chase. We came out of stage one and it felt like: ‘This is going to be awesome!’ And then it’s like the next stage, and it’s gone. I said to Keaton: ‘Sick, all of those years, this is all I’ve ever wanted and we get four miles of it…’
“We did get the first split of Wildcat and, again, the car was feeling good without taking any risks. I was starting to push it harder into corners, starting to create the grip in the car and the confidence was coming – the feeling was getting better and better in just those few miles.
Semenuk was beginning to get the hang of the Fiesta Rally2
“It was so disappointing. Obviously, we knew it was a risk, but that doesn’t stop me being super-grateful to Dan [Antcil], Keaton, Tim and Rich [Millener] from M-Sport and, of course, Mark Rushbrook and Ford Racing. I took a risk when I stepped away from Subaru and coming back to the US wasn’t part of the plan – but this was an opportunity against an amazing benchmark. I wanted to learn something and all I wanted to do was compete against him.
“It was…” Semenuk’s voice dips. We’re talking a couple of days down the road from the event and the frustration’s clearly not showing any sign of subsiding.
“… A missed opportunity,” he concluded.
Semenuk’s standards are insanely high. Whether he’s taking a photograph, landing a tail whip into a double drop at Red Bull Rampage or driving a rally car, nothing short of perfection will do.
Olympus wasn’t what he wanted in terms of a result, but it certainly helped silence those who’ve been asking that car question for the last four years.
