It’s the news all of American rallying was waiting to hear.
Conner Martell will contest the full American Rally Association National championship presented by Kubota – albeit under one proviso.
“We’ll do the full season yeah, as long as the car stays on the road and isn’t totaled!” Martell told DirtFish.
With two second places on the first two rounds, it’s easy to forget the 27-year-old is still a relative rallying newbie.
Although he made his first start almost 10 years ago, 2025 will be his first proper season commitment. But he does have the expertise of co-driver Alex Gelsomino to call upon.
“He’s got a lot of knowledge on every rally we’ll do this year,” Martell said. “So for 100 Acre Wood for example I was able to get some of Ken Block’s old videos, watch those and just really study.
Martell is making the most of the experience his co-driver, Alex Gelsomino, has
“Even just before the rally, we’re on the phone talking while I’m watching the videos of Ken and he’s telling me which corners they’ve had issues with in the past and stuff like this. So yeah, we’re just clicking and it takes a lot of effort to be able to go as fast as we’re going in these cars.”
Competing in the Open 4WD field in his previous generation Subaru WRX STI, Martell has the toughest benchmark of all to measure himself against: Subaru Motorsports USA’s triple and reigning champion Brandon Semenuk.
But Martell is confident his speed is “definitely increasing”.
He said: “The notes are huge – we definitely notice every rally our notes are better right off the bat, so our second pass we’re not making as many changes and not as many changes after doing the first loop of stages, so it’s definitely coming along.
“I think our speed is definitely increasing. I remember at Ojibwe we were way slower than Brandon, so I think we’re going to keep pushing and just try to get better.
“But again, if we want to run the full season we can’t put the car off so that’s also in the back of my head.”
Next week’s Olympus Rally will be another all-new experience for Martell who has never done the rally before, although he has spectated it plenty of times in the past.
“It’s such a different rally compared to anything I’ve done so I’m pretty excited to see what it’s like,” he added.
“I know it’s super technical and there’s usually some cars that go off there, so it’s just going to be another rally where our notes have to be perfect.”
