Rally drivers thrive on speed. It’s the very nature of their sport to push themselves to go faster than they believe is possible, and more pertinently faster than any of their competition.
But there’s an inescapable truth about this year’s Sno*Drift Rally – the opening round of the 2022 American Rally Association presented by DirtFish National championship. Nobody is really going fast at all.
Sno*Drift is one of the craziest and most demanding rallies you’ll find anywhere in the world. You could say the same about any event held on snow and ice, but Michigan state law prohibits the use of studs in tires meaning competitors aren’t flying with mind-bending levels of grip like the World Rally Championship bunch will be in Sweden next week.
Instead, it’s all about modulating the throttle in a desperate search for wherever any grip may lurk. But this year it’s worse, far worse. It’s not so much the Sno*Drift Rally as it is the Ice*Drift Rally as Martin Brady dubbed it in his stage guides column for DirtFish.
A couple of days before the event there was lots of rain in the region due to unseasonably high temperatures, but it then went sub-freezing overnight, leaving the stages covered in sheets of ice rather than a layer of snow like normal.
Snow isn’t a grippy surface, but ice – well, we’ve all skidded down hills in the school yard when we were kids. You don’t need us to tell you how little grip ice provides when on foot, let alone in a rally car.
The effect is obvious. While after the first six stages of last year’s event leader Travis Pastrana had averaged 65.6mph, this year’s leader Brandon Semenuk – in exactly the same car – had averaged just 35.9mph.
“I would say the pace is definitely less than half, it’s so slippery we might as well be driving on an ice rink,” Semenuk described it to DirtFish.
“It’s just tricky and then in the last couple of stages at night it was windy, it was snowy so we had this full Star Wars effect and it just warmed up a bit as well so the ice almost got wetter and it was even slippier, so the last loop was crazy slippery and yeah it’s tricky.”
Rally drivers are superhuman, but to survive this year’s Sno*Drift they need to be built differently. Patience is key, but so far most have kept themselves out of trouble.
“It’s awesome to see so many cars get through there because I was expecting way more carnage and way more delays,” said Semenuk. “But I think it’s just so inconsistent the entire stage that people are just trying to drive at their limit.
“We pushed where we could and took it very easy where it’s sketchy so we’re happy we’re here.”
Semenuk is in a class of one this weekend due to all of his usual rivals being absent for a variety of reasons, but the conditions are that bad a dominant lead effectively means nothing if he does make a mistake.
It’s tough for the Canadian, but imagine being Chris Sladek. The Honda Passport driver, who ended day 12th in the National classification, is on his first-ever snow rally.
“It’s definitely slick out there, pretty much all the stages are sheets of ice now,” Sladek said.
“We might try lower tire pressures but honestly even driving there won’t be much that can help, you’re kind of at the mercy of the ice and just making sure you keep it straight.”
It’s bonkers stuff. And what’s more crazy is later this year drivers will be flat-out in sixth flying between the trees on the New England Forest Rally.
To be champion of the ARA, you really need to be a complete driver. Even if that does mean appearing to drive slower than a grandma on her way to the store.
