Barry McKenna and Leon Jordan will not take the start of this weekend’s Ojibwe Forests Rally, bringing their American Rally Association presented by DirtFish National championship defense to an end.
DirtFish understands work commitments for McKenna have made it impossible for him to attend round six this weekend in his Ford Fiesta WRC.
The McKenna Motorsports team, run in conjunction with Dom Buckley RSC, will however remain at the event running cars for several drives like John Coyne, Ryan Booth and Tom Williams.
It’s the second event McKenna has been forced to miss so far this season as he also pulled out of the Olympus Rally back in April for personal reasons.
McKenna’s title chances were already looking bleak due to that no-show and the supreme form of Subaru Motorsports USA’s Travis Pastrana this season.
Pastrana has won three of the first five rallies, claiming second in another but retiring from the lead on the New England Forest Rally last month.
McKenna meanwhile has won just once in 2021 – Southern Ohio Forest Rally – but showed the pace to win both the 100 Acre Wood Rally (the debut of his bespoke WRC Fiesta) and NEFR before punctures took him out of contention while leading.
It means alongside his victory, the only other points McKenna has scored are two third places – on Sno*Drift Rally and 100AW Rally – and now that he won’t score in Ojibwe, all of his dropped scores have been used and it is impossible for him to close the points gap to Pastrana.
If Pastrana beats team-mate Brandon Semenuk and Ken Block to victory this weekend, he will be all but assured of the the 2021 ARA National title.
