Ford Fiesta Rally3 driver Javier Olivares is shooting for his fifth straight ARA podium at this week’s Rally in the 100 Acre Wood – but he knows he’s up against it with so much more Open class and Rally2 competition in Missouri.
Olivares, who clinched last year’s Limited 4WD crown at LSPR, has been something of a giant-killer since the middle of last season, regularly pushing his turbocharged 1.5-liter car to overall podiums.
“It’s good,” he told DirtFish. “We were happy to get third in Sno*Drift [last month] and that was a tough event. We came out of the recce there and I was thinking: ‘Why am I doing this?’
“Sometimes, it’s really hard to imagine the speed you can come through the stages in a rally car, but then you just do it. That event was fairly stressful; there were a lot of challenges – before the start I’d never done a snow rally before and that’s kind of still the case!
Third on Sno*Drift was Olivares' fourth consecutive overall ARA podium
“100 Acre should be more straightforward – we had Wild West [Regional Rally on Sunday] and that gave us some more time in the car before this week.
“The run of podiums is nice, but we know that with Travis [Pastrana] back, it’s going to be harder to do that. Each event will just kind of depend on who’s going to be there. Whatever happens, happens. The priority for me is to defend the [L4WD] title this season.”
Olivares’ pace has certainly caught the attention of his fellow Fiesta Rally3 driver, Jason Bailey. The Canadian said: “Javier has it all figured out. He’s only done like a dozen rallies, but he’s just hopped into the car and he rarely makes a mistake. He’s smart.”
