Last month’s Sno*Drift was Conner Martell’s fourth start on a round of the ARA National Championship presented by Kubota. And his third time finishing second.
The 27-year-old remains something of a rallying newbie, but his career on the stages is being fast-tracked with the use of a Vermont SportsCar-built Subaru. There’s nothing new about the car, it’s a 10-year-old Impreza WRX – but Martell’s shown it to be still capable of running at the front.
His first outing on the season’s winter round was always going to be challenging, but as the championship moves towards Missouri, this week’s 100 Acre Wood and the relative familiarity of gravel, he’s a man with a plan.
“I’ll definitely be trying to push a little bit harder right from the get-go at 100 Acre Wood,” he told DirtFish. “I want to really dial in the pacenotes there. We’ll take a lot of time going over them before the event so I have 100% confidence.
“Then I’m going to push. I know there needs to be some mistakes, you learn from those mistakes when you’re going a bit harder. All the rallies I did last year were with this car, so even if I’ve never done [100 Acre Wood] before, I’m pretty comfortable with how it reacts.”
Martell’s assessment of his second place on Sno*Drift is refreshingly upfront.
Martell took VSC-built Subaru to a third consecutive ARA second-place finish on Sno*Drift
“I thought I’d be closer to the pace earlier on and I wasn’t,” he said. “Our stage times looked pretty good, but I had a few spins – I just didn’t mark the slippery bits as good as I needed to.
“We had a couple of mistakes on Friday, then we one small spin on Saturday, which was so silly. I put the car on the edge of the bank to try to slow it down and it grabbed the front and spun us 360. It wasn’t a huge mistake, but it would have cost us if we’d been in a close battle.”
Martell’s Impreza sports the colors of series partner Kubota, a partnership he’s proud of.
“I’m a big tractor guy,” he said. “Having Kubota with me is a real honor and it’s awesome of the series.”
