By recent standards, three weeks without rallying is like a lifetime.
But this week she’s back, and back on the podium trail.
DirtFish Women in Motorsport driver Aoife Raftery’s trajectory has been impossible to ignore in 2026 as the Irishwoman’s grown in stature, speed and confidence.
Lining up for the latest round of the American Rally Association National Championship, the Southern Ohio Forest Rally, alongside co-driver Hannah McKillop, Raftery can’t wait to get going.
“I’ve been smiling for weeks thinking about it,” she told DirtFish. “It’s great to be returning to America with the DirtFish Women in Motorsport Program and Element Rallysport running the Ford Fiesta Rally3 on Pirelli tires. Then the week after we’ll be at Donegal, one of the best events in Ireland, but for now, our full focus is on what we can do this week.”
Raftery will compete in an ultra-competitive Limited 4WD class against four other Rally3 cars, including DirtFish alumni Richo Healey (with DirtFish instructor Michelle Miller calling the notes) who makes the switch from Open 2WD.
“There’s definitely going to be good competition,” Raftery smiled. “It’s a shame Travis [Pastrana] won’t be here this weekend as he’s a great benchmark to aim towards, but the entry is really strong with Clios in the mix as well as the Fiesta, so I’m looking forward to it.
“We’ll be running fifth on the road which is a cool honor to be so near the front, but the benefit of being further back is you’ve got a cleaner road and a cleaner line,” she added. “That’s a new challenge but we had a test this week to help us adjust.
“At Olympus [Rally] we had really positive stage times, but, unfortunately, not the overall result to go with it, so if we can manage to achieve both of those this weekend, I’ll be really happy.”
Lia Block came within an ace of lifting her first outright ARA win at Sno*Drift. Could this be the Hyundai star's weekend?
The battle for outright victory is expected to be between the Hyundai i20 N Rally2 of Lia Block and Seth Quintero’s Toyota GR Corolla Rally RC2 – and one-time ARA National rally winner Ricardo Cordero’s Citroën C3 Rally2 could be in the mix. But Aoife is aware she might have a chance of a second outright ARA podium.
“We may need somebody to have problems ahead of us, but that would be a real bonus,” she said.
“It’s going to be a big weekend. The stages are quite fast and technical at the same time so it’s a proper challenge. You can’t see through so many of the corners so a good set of pacenotes will be important, but I think we should have really strong pace.”
In seven starts so far in 2026, Raftery has finished on the class podium every time and won her class four times.
