Travis Pastrana has edged past Ken Block in their fight for second but it’s Brandon Semenuk that’s in control of the Oregon Trail Rally at the end of the second day.
Semenuk was third after Friday night’s pair of stages at Portland International Raceway but immediately surged into the lead on Saturday’s first stage and has remained there ever since.
While both of his rivals Block and Pastrana have encountered problems – a puncture for Pastrana on SS3 and a ECU connector problem for Block on SS7 – Semenuk has been immune from any drama and driven impeccably to lead the rally by 34.2 seconds.
Should the Subaru Motorsports USA driver hold on, it will be his first victory of the 2021 American Rally Association presented by DirtFish National season on the final event of the year.
Block’s earlier issue all but negated Pastrana’s time loss for his flat tire and as a result, the old rivals were glued together on the leaderboard. While Block managed to extend his cushion to 5.1s on SS8, he lost six seconds on SS9 and then a further 1.2s on SS10 – the famous Maryhill – to trail by 2.1s overall heading into Sunday’s eight stages.
Hamad Al-Wahaibi maintained his record of setting the fourth fastest stage time on every single stage of the rally so far to run fourth overall in his Ford Fiesta Rally2.
Javier Castro is a strong five in his Toyota R4 ahead of Enda McCormack and John Coyne’s battle for sixth.
As it stands it’s advantage McCormack; the Hyundai i20 R5 pilot flexing his muscles as the day wore on to head Coyne by 31.9s.
George Plsek is eighth overall in his Mitsubishi, 1m00.3s ahead of Tony Torchia’s Subaru. Derik Nelson completes the top 10 and leads the two-wheel-drive contingent in his Subaru BRZ.
Overall classification after SS10:
1 Semenuk/Hall (Subaru) 50m54.6s
2 Pastrana/Gelsomino (Subaru) +34.2s
3 Block/Gelsomino (Subaru) +36.3s
4 Al-Wahaibi/Sircombe (Ford) +2m56.5s
5 Castro/Agesta (Toyota) +5m22.5s
6 McCormack/McCormack (Hyundai) +7m03.8s
7 Coyne/Dunham (Ford) +7m35.7s
8 Plsek/Skucas (Mitsubishi) +8m18.2s
9 Torchia/Ruston (Subaru) +9m18.5s
10 Nelson/Grahn (Subaru) +9m21.6s
