Conner Martell secured a maiden ARA National Championship presented by Kubota victory at Overmountain Rally, while Aoife Raftery grabbed a sensational overall podium on her Rally3 debut.
After wrapping up the 2025 title at the previous round, Subaru Motorsports USA driver Brandon Semenuk missed the trip to Newport due to filming commitments, thus opening up the playing field for the rest.
Building on his improving pace across the season, Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 pilot Martell, and his co-driver Alex Gelsomino, delivered on their promise to beat Travis Pastrana’s Limited 4WD Subaru by over five minutes at Overmountain.
The pressure on Martell was eased when fellow Fabia driver Ryan Booth withdrew ahead of the start, but Martell won every one of the 16 stages and felt he’d proved a point to himself against Semenuk – even if his rival wasn’t there to race with him.
Martell told DirtFish: “I’m super-stoked to take my first National win. Obviously I want to beat Brandon, but we did really well here and I think we now have every stage record at this rally, so that’s mainly what I’m most happy about – I was able to beat their stage times from last year.
Martell shared the podium with Travis Pastrana and Aoife Raftery
“It was a great weekend, we put a lot of hard work into it, we just stayed in our rhythm and were able to get it to the end, and that was the key.”
Martell ended up being the only Rally2 car standing at the end of Overmountain as the rest of his class rivals retired.
Javier Olivares had been as high as second overall in his Ford Fiesta Rally2, but “a big hit” after taking a cut through a ditch broke his radiator. Patrick Gruszka retired from third place on SS12 while Alastair Scully rolled his Hyundai on the second stage.
Delight for DirtFish WiM driver Raftery
Returning to the US after standout drives at Olympus and Oregon Trail, Irishwoman Raftery and co-driver Hannah McKillop scored second in class and third overall in a Ford Fiesta Rally3.
Having never driven the car in competition before, the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Driver was immediately on the pace, trading seconds with Sean Donnelly. But when Donnelly was forced to retire his Renault Clio, she became the lead Rally3 runner, setting several top-three overall times including on the powerstage.
DirtFish WiM driver Raftery was sensational in Tennessee
Third place marked the first overall podium of Raftery’s burgeoning career..
“I’m delighted, really happy with the result,” she told DirtFish.
“A big thank you to all the team at DirtFish and Standard Motorsport, it’s been a fantastic weekend and the car was flawless – we’re really happy.”
Class winner Pastrana was suitably impressed: “We were within five seconds on the powerstage,” said the Subaru driver. “It’s really cool to see how close this Limited car is with the Rally3s on time, and Aoife again proved what she’s made of.”
Madelyn Tabor and Sophie McKee completed the class podium in another Fiesta Rally3.
Johnston’s win and a new two-wheel-drive champion
Johnston's class win was the third for the 208 Rally4 this season
As anticipated, Open 2WD became a battle of the two Peugeot 208 Rally4s: Sean Johnston and Mikaël Arsenault.
Former WRC2 driver Johnston was close to a minute ahead of his FJ Motorsports team-mate before the Canadian was forced to retire, leaving Johnston’s path clear to fourth overall and a class victory.
DirtFish Rally School alumni Richo Healey bagged his first ever top-five finish and second in the O2WD class in his Lexus IS 350, co-driven as always by DirtFish senior instructor Michelle Miller. Seamus Burke completed the class podium in his Ford Escort Mk2.
However the biggest smile was reserved for Chris Cyr who, despite late mechanical drama, beat Henry Tabor’s similar Ford Fiesta ST by just 24.5s in an epic battle that also earned him the Limited 2WD championship.
Cyr told DirtFish: “We couldn’t even start the car two stages ago. We had to go into the stage start with the car off 15 seconds before, turned it on, got a quarter mile and it started sputtering, turned it off, turned it back on, she finished the stage, she finished the powerstage and we’re CHAMPIONS!
“Twenty-one years…,” he continued, starting to well up, “this is the moment.”
Jacobsohn wins his first Regional
Overcoming a slow start on Friday’s superspecial that left him 13th, Gabriel Jacobsohn topped the Regional event in his Subaru Impreza N10, beating Ryan Pryzbylkowski in a close fight.
On his first start of 2025, the American driver also secured his first ever ARA Regional rally win in the process – and couldn’t quite believe it.
“It’s very strange, nobody else is here yet [at the finish] which has never happened before,” Jacobsohn told DirtFish.
“I think the people behind us had some trouble this afternoon, it was an absolute blast battling with them all yesterday, but our plan was to bring it home and we did a little better than that, so no complaints.”
