Pastrana leads dust-impacted LSPR opening day

Travis Pastrana leads the way on an unusually dusty Lake Superior Performance Rally, which had its last two stages cancelled due to the low visibility.

Unusually dry weather meant hanging dust became an issue, especially towards the end of the first day. Notional times were handed out for stage eight and the remaining two tests cancelled, a call the rally leader agreed with,

“I don’t think anybody expected the dust here,” Pastrana told DirtFish. “Never seen dust at LSPR. There’s always snow or rain!

“We still had dust from the zero car which went about 15 minutes ahead of us. I was thinking: is it fog? Is there a car running ahead of us that we’re going to catch? But it just hung in the air. So they made the right call cancelling the rest of the stages.”

Conner Martell is running second overall in an previous-generation WRX STI and even won stage four when Pastrana encountered a minor mechanical issue: the lead gap is 25.1s.

“Conner is driving fantastically,” added Pastrana. “I know my car is better and he’s been running right with our stage times.”

Lia Block is running third on her debut in a factory Subaru, paired with reigning champion Brandon Semenuk’s regular co-driver Keaton Williams. Semenuk is absent due to a clashing commitment at Red Bull Rampage, a mountain bike competition.

“I’m feeling good about the first half of the day,” said Block. “I’m slowly improving over each stage, getting faster with the car and feeling what the limits are, both for the car and myself.”

Like many of her fellow competitors, Block struggled towards the end of the day with visibility issues: “I found a wall of dust I couldn’t see through,” she said. “It’s a new thing for LSPR because usually it’s wet here, they’ve never had a problem with dust before.

“Because of the delays the last two stages were run in the dark. I had three minutes from Conner and I literally went off the road at a virtual chicane because I couldn’t see where the road ended or anything in front of me!”

Javier Olivares is the lone RC2 car at LSPR and runs fourth overall. But with a 1m47.6s deficit to Block ahead, he’ll need attrition to add to his tally of four podiums this season.

Greg Bugaj is often a frontrunner on LSPR with his black and orange WRX STI hatchback but encountered problems from the very start, hitting a rock on stage one and losing 15 minutes. On stage four he went off again and damaged a rear quarter: despite going to the effort of replacing a tie rod mid-stage and continuing to the finish, he had to retire due to damage.

The Open 2WD class is going down to the wire between current points leader Michael Hooper and Ryan Booth, with the latter in the box seat to win the title.

Hooper’s Lexus IS350 suffered a suspected fuel pump issue on the very first stage and lost almost 18 minutes, leaving Booth to battle fellow Escort Mk2 runner Seamus Burke for the lead. Burke then dropped out with a mechanical problem, leaving Booth with a near three-minute lead over Daniel Hayes’ Mustang GT.

Booth will seal the title if he wins the rally, with one exception: if Hooper can climb back to second place and win the powerstage in his class, the O2WD crown would go to the Lexus driver. With over 15 minutes deficit to Hayes ahead, that scenario looks unlikely to transpire.

Chris Cyr leads L2WD by 53.6s over Chris Slack’s Acura Integra; newly crowned champions Richo Healey and Michelle Miller in third place suffered a gearbox fault, losing second gear on their spare ‘box having already changed it before the rally began due to issues during pre-event testing.

Jimmy Pelizzari and John Farrow are battling hard for the Regional victory, separated by just 17.8s overall. Their pace has been sufficiently strong that Pelizzari is even fifth in the combined National-Regional order.

“The last one was maybe the sketchiest thing I’ve ever done!” said Pelizzari of stage eight. “We made it through. It made Sno*Drift look pretty tame. You just can’t see anything, you’ll come into a turn, it’s blind, you’ll be on a straight and it’s blind.”