As a man who’s not afraid of heights, Travis Pastrana has missed standing on the podium’s top step. Until now. The Subaru Motorsports USA star landed his first win in three years at the Ojibwe Forests Rally on Saturday evening.
Typically full of humility, he was quick to pay tribute to his team-mate Brandon Semenuk’s speed and his inability to match the Canadian-flagged WRX. But when the defending champion retired on Friday, Pastrana saw the opportunity to storm the winners’ circle once more.
Heading into Saturday’s nine stages – totalling 74 competitive miles – the #199 Subaru was two minutes clear of Conner Martell’s older-specification WRX STI. That the returning Semenuk would steal the stage times was a given, but Pastrana didn’t need to worry about such things. He and co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino just had to keep their car in the middle of the road and tick them off. Through Saturday morning they did that brilliantly, simultaneously building their advantage over Martell beyond the three-minute mark.
The afternoon’s second stage was where things started to go awry. Rocketing down a straight in the Kanten Trail test, the WRX seemed to have died.
“It was just blugh, blugh, blughdy, blugh,” Pastrana told DirtFish. “Every time we got to a quarter-throttle, every time the turbo started to build boost, it was like it was choking on fuel. I thought it could be a blown turbo, but I looked in the mirror and there was no smoke. Basically we dropped a minute per stage for those three [stages].”
Back in service, the Vermont SportsCar squad fixed the issue and sent Pastrana towards the powerstage with something of a dilemma.
“Should I push to fight for the maximum points? I wasn’t sure what to do,” he said. “I thought: “You’re not going to beat Brandon…” then I thought: “Come on! You can win this thing!” I was kind of half-in, half-out and that’s not when I drive the best, I need to be completely committed. In the end, we got a puncture on the front-right and with four kilometres to go, I swear every turn was a left-hander.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m really happy with my first win in three years and my eighth win here.”
Olivares flew his Fiesta Rally3 to another podium and another American title
That first 2024 victory allied to Semenuk’s Friday fail had Gelsomino doing some sums with the title in mind.
“We’ve done some math,” grinned Pastrana. “It’s complicated and there are a lot of assumptions, but it could be close.”
Title talk can wait. The time had come for him and Gelsomino to celebrate their success.
Martell’s second place meant a second Gelsomino on the podium with Alex one step down on his wife. Conner’s pace aboard the ageing VSC machine was one of the event’s talking points. The 27-year-old is one of America’s best rallycross drivers, but his stage experience is limited, with Ojibwe being just his second crack at an ARA national-level event. It didn’t show. He drove a clean, quick rally to secure a one-two for the Vermont team.
Healey and Miller were on stunning form to land a second L2WD class win of the season
Third place and his now customary L4WD win was enough to secure back-to-back class titles for Javier Olivares. The Ford Fiesta Rally3 driver delivered a typically surefooted, trouble-free and pacey performance to rack up an amazing fourth overall podium in six starts this season.
John Coyne was a solid fourth in his Hyundai i20 N Rally2. Like Olivares, the Irishman was missing competition in his class – but he still came home with almost five minutes in hand over George Plsek’s fifth-placed Mitsubishi.
If it was competition you were after, look no further than the scrap for L2WD and sixth place. Richo Healey (Lexus IS 250) and Roberto Yglesias (Ford Fiesta ST) have been at it all season and it was no different in Minnesota last week. Going into the final stage, Yglesias was 3.2s ahead. He emerged from the powerstage admitting he’d done all he could, posting a time 20s faster than his first attempt at the same eight-mile Otterkill test which opened Saturday. It was going to take something special from Healey to overturn that gap. Special is what Richo and his co-driver – senior DirtFish instructor – Michelle Miller are all about these days. They won by four-tenths of a second.
“I have no words,” grinned Healey. “Holy s***! I’m ecstatic. This was a really big one for Michelle and I. We have worked so hard for this. At the start of this year, beating Roberto on pace was a pipedream. To do it by tenths… I’m stoked!”
Nykanen's sideways BMW kept both the competition and the spectators on their toes last week
Healey’s River City Rally team-mate Michael Hooper took the O2WD class and eighth in his Lexus, with Semenuk scorching back through the field to score ninth place and a powerstage maximum.
Henry Tabor made a welcome rallying return after injury, rounding out the top 10 in one of the Tabor family Fiestas.
BMW E36 crew Matthew Nykanen and Lars Anderson thrilled fans with their sideways-to-victory story in the Regional event. The pair dominated O2WD, beating Mike Hurst’s awesome-sounding and almost-as-sideways Ford Capri.
Second overall in Regional went to Aidan Hicks with fellow Subaru driver James Randall third – both celebrated class success with the former fastest in NA4WD and Randall taking L4WD. Fiesta driver Brent Lucio won the L2WD category.
