Subaru Motorsports USA’s Brandon Semenuk will look to extend his unbeaten run of American Rally Association wins to five at this weekend’s Oregon Trail Rally.
Save for one 100 Acre Wood powerstage point – where Barry McKenna pipped the Canadian – Semenuk’s season has been perfect. After closing last year out with a commanding LSPR win, he and Keaton Williams have started 2023 in the same vein.
The WRX STI pair sit 35 points clear and will remain at the top of the table regardless of what happens in Oregon this week.
Semenuk told DirtFish: “I’m looking forward to Oregon Trail. I was pretty stoked with how Olympus went. We learned a lot on that one with some fairly big curve balls.
“It was a drama-free event – the team did a great job to keep the car running really well on what we some fairly tough roads – but personally I found some good things I can take to Oregon; things like the challenge of driving on the freshly-graded roads and, of course, we had some fairly wet weather which brough its own challenges.”
The weather in Oregon couldn’t be more different this week, with temperatures expected to top 90 degrees with bright sunshine and little chance of rain.
Semenuk has competed in Oregon twice before, finishing second to Ken Block last year. He’s aiming to go one better this year.
“I hope Oregon can be a little bit easier on the car,” he said, “but we know the roads are going to get much faster.”
Tom Williams led the charge to challenge Semenuk last time out at the DirtFish Olympus Rally, but the Briton will return home to drive his Ford Fiesta Rally2 on a rally in Wales this weekend instead.
