Travis Pastrana has shed some light on the dramatic fire that took him out of Saturday night’s Southern Ohio Forest Rally, which was captured on video by fellow competitor Chris Greenhouse.
The Subaru Motorsports USA driver made a solid start in his first American Rally Association National series outing since last August’s Ojibwe Forests Rally, clearing the opening Top Gun South I stage, however he stopped on the second stage after a sudden loss of power. From then, the WRX STI of Pastrana and stand-in co-driver Chrissie Beavis was quickly consumed by fire.
While the exact cause of the inferno was impossible to immediately determine due to its severity and the resulting wreckage, Pastrana said he believed it to be a severed oil line coming into contact with the turbo.
Photo: Mike Cessna
“We lost power and then we caught on fire,” he told DirtFish.
“We think it was an oil line or something, but it’s hard to tell because, y’know, there’s nothing left.”
Despite his dramatic exit from the rally early on Pastrana, as ever, remained somewhat positive.
“Chrissy just flew in literally this morning, she did an amazing job, jumped right in.
“We kept it where we needed to, tried to make some points and tried to get out of this round, but obviously that didn’t work out so, back to the drawing board.
“Hopefully we can get a car for the next round.
“[It’s a] Huge hit to the championship for us, my job coming in this year with David [Higgins] not here is to make the most of it, and it’s going to be tough.”
Photo: Mike Cessna
