Lia Block scored a maiden ARA National Championship win with a controlled drive at the Ojibwe Forests Rally – a result which moves her further clear in the race for this year’s American title.
Despite never having competed on the Minnesota event before, the 19-year-old delivered a faultless victory, leading the field from start to finish on the two-day rally.
Block and co-driver Alex Gelsomino stunned their rivals with a time 16 seconds faster than anybody through the opening stage. Toyota’s Seth Quintero was second quickest, but he went off the road and was forced to retire from day one with a broken control arm in SS2.
Despite that stellar time, Block felt there was still some margin in her and the Hyundai i20 N Rally2.
“The first stage is the first stage,” she told DirtFish. “You want to make it through. Then we heard that Seth had stopped on stage two and, obviously, our strategy had to change. That’s a big sway in championship points for us and we had to finish. We had to drive with minimal risk, but at the same time you have to keep leading the rally. That can be quite a difficult thing to do, you can make mistakes when you’re trying to make no mistakes!
“I’m really happy with the way we managed that, we stayed consistent and we stayed completely focused on our goal instead of getting caught up in each stage.”
Block won eight out of 14 stages across the rally's two days
Block’s win moves her 21 points clear of Quintero – who returned on Saturday to bag maximum powerstage points – with two rounds remaining, but there’s more maths to do.
“Derek [Dauncey, team manager] has worked out the dropped scores and when we drop our fourth place at 100 Acre Wood – our worst score of the season – then we should still be nine points ahead,” she explained.
“I’m happy with that, it’s a more comfortable gap than we started and I would say there’s a bit less strain on me. For me, this was a really good event. I’d never actually raced Ojibwe before, but with Alex alongside me and with Derek’s experience, we got things like tire choices right, everything worked. We found some settings which really worked in the test and really tailored the set-up to my driving style.
“The roads are so sandy, the stages are very technical, very undulating with lots of crests and the test was about making sure I have that confidence to stick the car in and power it out and that really worked this weekend. I went to the start with so much confidence in the car and with the notes.”
Having come within a whisker of a maiden ARA win – before a drive belt failure – at the season-opening Sno*Drift Rally, Block’s Ojibwe success went some of the way to making up for that disappointment in Michigan. Or did it?
“Yes and no,” she said. “I mean, it’s definitely difficult to think about the beginning of the year and where we could have been now. But I believe everything happens for a reason – and I’ve just had to work my a** off that much more. And that makes the win that much more sweeter.”
“What we did here, it means we’re making history here in the States [as the first woman to win an ARA round], but, I feel like it should have happened a while ago. I’m happy to trailblaze that and I hope this is inspiring to the next generation, to a young girl sitting at home watching – that’s important.
DirtFish Women in Motorsport Driver Aoife Raftery was also on the pace in Ojibwe, though an early retirement with a steering problem stopped her from clinching a top result
“In terms of the win, the biggest thing is all the hard work that’s happened behind the scenes to get my first win and win it outright. There’s no doubt about that. You know, I literally beat everybody. I was the fastest driver out here this weekend. But this isn’t the be all and end all. There’s so much more going forwards, so many other big goals and that starts with the championship at the end of the season.”
Javier Olivares finished second in his Ford Fiesta Rally2 with Daniel Shalev’s Peugeot 208 Rally4 also making the podium in third.
DirtFish Women in Motorsport Driver Aoife Raftery retired from Friday with a steering-related issue, but delivered an outstanding Sunday where she and co-driver Hannah McKillop never out of the top four times overall in the DirtFish WiM-liveried Ford Fiesta Rally3. Fastest L4WD on every test through the second day ensured Raftery was an astonishing 5m19s faster than her nearest rival on the eight stages run.
Richo Healey and DirtFish’s Michelle Miller were looking well set for a L4WD win, more than two minutes clear at the end of Friday before their Fiesta Rally3 was sidelined with a fire on Saturday morning.
