The heavy wooden door swung open, Marcus Grönholm emerged. He wasn’t smiling. There was nothing to smile about.
Walking along the road outside the Portal Del Lago hotel, I asked the Finn about the stewards’ decision which had just cost him a comfortable Rally Argentina win.
“This?” he replied, showing me the sheet of A4-sized yellow paper which contained the verdict. Before I could answer, he took the page and pretended to wipe his backside with it.
For Grönholm, read his Peugeot team-mate Richard Burns as the new winner of the latest South American adventure. Six hours later, debrief done, RB was back in the hotel when he was informed the flywheel on his 206 WRC was 20 grams underweight. He too was out.
Sitting in a restaurant in town, Carlos Sainz was congratulated on his second victory in Cordoba. The Spaniard, who had started the final day a distant fifth, was as surprised as anybody.
Club DirtFish columnist Marcus Grönholm won Rally Argentina in 2002. Then he didn't
That night in Villa Carlos Paz was one of those WRC moments which had to be seen to be believed. This, on the same event where Tommi Mäkinen had rolled his factory Subaru over the top of people, made for a rally nobody would ever forget.
Last night in Atlanta, Michigan, the American Rally Association National Championship had its very own Argentina, 2002.
In the space of a couple of hours, Travis Pastrana went from looking like a nailed-on winner to looking for a way back onto the road. That left Lia Block ready to deliver one of the most emotional and extraordinary story lines in the history of the sport. On her first attempt at the Sno*Drift Rally, the 19-year-old was going to win her first ever ARA round overall. And she was going to do it in a Rally3 car. Another first.
With just 100 meters of the competitive route remaining, her Ford Fiesta Rally3 inexplicably stopped. It wouldn’t go. She’d started the stage with more than three minutes in hand over Javier Castro’s Audi A1 and was pushed over the line 28 seconds behind the winner.
The Argentinian, who had started the final day a distant fifth, was as surprised as anybody.
Heartbreaker. But still, second was one heck of a result for Block.
Second became third after she was later arriving at the final control, having been towed down the road. But still, third behind former Sno*Drift winner Mark Piatkowski’s Subaru was one heck of a result.
Hang on a moment, Castro’s under investigation for a control infringement. He’s excluded. She’s back up to second.
Another moment… Block’s now under investigation for being pushed through a control. And she’s out too.
Through that Saturday night madness, Piatkowski’s second Sno*Drift win was confirmed, with Sean Donnelly and his Renault Clio upholding Rally3 honours in second while Alastair Scully’s Hyundai i20 R5 was classified third.
With four-time American champion Brandon Semenuk and his factory Subaru absent from this year’s series, the one predictable aspect of the season opener was its unpredictability. Who would win? Pastrana, probably. But really, who knew. And that Friday and Saturday happened.
Yes, it was all slightly off and definitely a tale of the unexpected, but one thing absolutely cannot be overlooked along the Michigan roads blessed by perfect winter conditions: Lia Block’s speed.
Let’s not forget, this was her first ever time competing on snow. Her first time. Talking to me before the event she’d joked about just trying to stay out of the ditches. She did that, and then some.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t see this speed coming. Competing on Sno*Drift takes genuine nerve. You’re out there in the deep freeze with no studs – a combination which makes so little sense, Toyota kept its new boy Seth Quintero and its new motor the GR Corolla RC2 away.
But Block laughed in the face of such concern and with teenage bravado allied to consummate ability, she set about those roads and defied convention and accepted wisdom about how fast somebody could drive a Rally3 car on Teflon roads she’s never seen before.
Plenty more will be written about Lia Block in the coming days and weeks, but make no mistake, Sno*Drift Rally 2026 was a seminal moment in the career of one of the world’s brightest and most promising prospects.
Regardless of where she did – or didn’t – finish.
