Brandon Semenuk will contest next week’s Olympus Rally presented by DirtFish at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta Rally2.
The four-time American champion finally confirmed his participation in the third round of this year’s ARA National Championship late on Saturday night. He will test the car on Tuesday ahead of the start of what many are predicting to be the biggest event in American rally history since the World Rally Championship departed the US in 1988.
“Olympus is the best rally in America, hands down,” Semenuk told DirtFish. “Back in January, I was thinking about renting a car for a rally in America and it was always going to be Olympus – it’s such a big deal with the 40th anniversary of the 1986 event. I thought the moment had passed and really didn’t expect a deal to come together so late.”
Semenuk will drive a Fiesta supplied by American driver Steven Redd and run by Dan Antcil’s Proworx operation.
“I’ve got to say a very big thanks to Steven and to Dan,” Semenuk continued. “Steven’s meticulous about the car and, obviously, Dan knows all about running cars in ARA. I worked with him for a long time at Subaru and he’s been the guy pushing to make this happen for a while.”
Confirming his plans less than a week before the start leaves Semenuk short on seat time in the car ahead of an event where he will be competing against Toyota star Jari-Matti Latvala.
The Canadian, who has won Olympus with Subaru for the last four years, added: “I haven’t raced in eight months and coming into this event on the back of so little preparation… I’m going to drive this one for myself. It’s great to be around an event where Jari-Matti [Latvala] is competing, but this is a new car I’m not familiar with on [Pirelli] tires I haven’t run before, working with a new engineer – it’s kind of a stressful situation.
“So I’m going to enjoy this one. I’ve been working flat-out on bike stuff and I’ve really missed driving a rally car. It’s awesome to be back and to be back with Keaton [Williams, co-driver] and I’m super-grateful to him too – he was working Olympus in his team manager role with Standard Motorsport until a couple of days ago.
“Keaton and I have been talking about this for a few days, he’s been sending me some stuff and between him, Dan and Steven, I said: ‘OK, it looks like we’re doing this thing.’”
Since landing his fourth straight title with Subaru last season, Semenuk has been clear that he wants to pursue a European-based program in an effort to build on the second place he scored on his maiden Finnish Rally Championship outing, driving a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 in Kouvola last year.
“That’s still the priority,” he said. “When I left Subaru, I didn’t want to just be sitting around – I want to be out in a Rally2 car in Europe. That’s another big appeal of doing Olympus: it’s the chance of 200 miles of competition on great roads and that’s a lot of seat time in one of these cars.
“Like I said, I don’t really know where I’m going to be. This is Olympus, on these roads you have to be on the ragged edge, committed everywhere and really pushing to make the times. I’m just happy to be back in the car.”
Olympus Rally presented by DirtFish starts from Olympia on Friday afternoon. The sell-out entry will tackle 18 stages and 200 miles across the next two and a half days.
