Photo by Michael Leppala
(Marquette, Mich. October 14, 2024) ~ After eight rounds spanning from February to October, and covering over 1000 stage miles, the 2024 American Rally Association National Championship has drawn to a close after the two-day finale at the famous Lake Superior Performance Rally Presented by Travel Marquette based in Marquette, Michigan.
The long-running event that has roots as far back as 1949 ends the seasons each year by putting competitors through one of the toughest events on the calendar. The Upper Peninsula logging roads are known for easily rutting, having unexpected slick corners, and being all-around deceptive, especially to competitors who are pushing hard to get as many points as possible as the championship draws to a close.
This year’s event sent National competitors on a 132-mile dash through the beautiful fall forests of the Great Lakes State. The high-speed leaf-peeping was enjoyed by the 71 teams who entered, while the fans enjoyed gathering to see motorsport in its greatest form once again.
Much like on Friday, due to the rarely dry conditions of the event, dust hanging in the stages was a concern for competitors who were concerned about the limited visibility, so an extra minute was added between competitors to allow more time for the dust to settle before the next car entered the stage.
Saturday’s itinerary was relaxed compared to Friday’s 90-mile day, including 33.45 miles for regional competitors and 40.26 for national entries.
Competitors started in Parc Exposé at the Ishpeming Armory at 8:00 am, leaving the site 45 minutes later to start the day just as they did Saturday on Al’s Playground and Menge Creek.
From there, competitors refueled before competing on the Villikissa and Trouble stages and heading to the day’s only service.
National competitors next made their way to the Power Stage, Villikissa II, before rejoining regional entrants on Double Trouble and going from there to the two spectator stages, Mt. Marquette and Marquette Mountain to complete the event, and the national calendar.
Pastrana Holds on for Third Win in a Row
Despite stiff competition from Connor Martell and Alex Gelsomino, Travis Pastrana and Rhiannon Gelsomino have taken their third consecutive ARA National win at LSPR by a margin of 46.8 seconds.
The Subaru Motorsports USA athletes led the rally by 25.1 seconds after Saturday’s stages despite tying Martell and Alex Gelsomino on SS1, and finishing within just a few seconds of them on many of the other stages.
Despite many other close finishes on Saturday and a few traded stage wins, it was SS13, Trouble, and the Power Stage SS14, Villikissa II where Pastrana was able to put over 20 combined seconds on his competition to seal a comfortable gap ahead of the two spectator stages Saturday evening.
And it was a good thing Pastrana did secure that gap to Martell, as the turbo on his Vermont SportsCar Subaru WRX went out during SS14, leaving him down on power for the remaining three stages, all of which Martell won.
“I just want to say thank you guys, each and every one of you for coming out, for supporting rally, for supporting [the late] Al [Dantes] and his family, this has been one hell of a time!” Pastrana said on the top step of the podium.
“They had more volunteers here than any other event. This is the U.P., this is where we end our championship, and it is an honor.”
Pastrana also gave a shoutout to 2024 National Championship winner Brandon Semenuk who was absent from the event due to competing in RedBull Rampage, and sealing his fifth win in the prestigious event.
Martell and Gelsomino finished the event in second overall with five stage wins to add to their quickly growing list of accomplishments together.
“Very different conditions and grips compared to past years at LSPR,” Gelsomino said. “it was a dry rally so we were dealing with dust and two stages had to be cancelled because the dust was just hanging in the forest.”
“That created a little more consistent and predictable grip which was great, especially for us, for Connor and I, because it’s just such a tough event. It’s high speed, and when it’s wet and muddy, every corner the grip is different, so we were able to focus strictly on pace notes, and lines and things like that without really having to mark all the grips because it was okay.”
“Warm temperatures and the fact that it was such nice weather attracted so many spectators. I saw thousands of people on the stages and in some sections there were cars parked for miles outside of spectator areas and everything. It was very good to see that especially at the season finale. It’s just such an amazing event, and the stages are fantastic.”
“From our side, we had a really good rally, and we were able to improve coming from Ojibwe where we won only one stage, we came here to LSPR and we won five stages, and half of the stages on day two I believe, and we were able to keep improving and getting closer to Travis and Rhiannon at the end, and the driving that Connor was doing all weekend was fantastic considering he was coming from that big shunt at Nitrocross in Salt Lake City a week ago.”
“It’s been a great season, and I’m looking forward to the start of next season, and hopefully we can keep the momentum going with ARA!”
Taking Semenuk’s place in his SMUSA WRX was Lia Block, co-driven by Keaton Williams. Block entered the day in third but crashed out on the first stage after locking up while entering a left curve.
“First stage, going great, Keaton said I wasn’t overpushing, and we had no moments,” Block told DirtFish’s Brenton Kelley who was on the scene. “I think we just came into this braking zone and, it’s quite loose so we locked up in the beginning and got off-line, and somehow we ended up sideways in between two trees.”
“The car is basically fine, if there wasn’t a tree right there we’d just push it over and keep going.”
“It is what it is, and this is rally.”
Block’s retirement left the third spot on the podium open for the Ford Fiesta Rally2 of Javier Olivares and KJ Miller to fill. Olivares and Miller were the lone RC2 entrants at the event after switching to the Rally2 after sealing the L4WD championship in a Rally3 Fiesta at Overmountain Rally.
Two back-to-back victories in the RC2 class also earned them runner-up finishes in the RC2 National Championship points, making 2024 a hardware-heavy season for the pair.
“It was a great weekend for us,” Miller said. “Getting more seat time in the rally2 and getting comfortable with the capabilities of the car. The high speed stages suited the car and Javier’s driving style very well. LSPR has always been one of my favorites and it didn’t disappoint this year!”
Photo by Charlie Discoe
Ryan Booth and Nick Dobbs have also officially won their first National Championship, taking the O2WD points win with their victory at LSPR in their MkII Ford Escort.
The pair have been battling with the Lexus IS350 of Michael Hooper and Michael Hordijk all season and entered the final round at LSPR just four points behind the Tennessee-based Lexus.
Luck turned in their favor on SS1 when Hooper suffered a puncture, giving Booth a nearly 20-minute lead. Despite the setback, Hooper and Booth still battled hard on every stage for bragging rights and the pure joy of RWD Rallying, and without the delay on SS1, Hooper would have taken the win by a margin of merely 17.1 seconds, but the large time deficit was too big to overcome.
“It was a great event,” Booth said. “Our pace was behind where I would have liked it to be during the entire weekend as I wasn’t able to make recce. With Hoopers mechanical on the first stage, it took lot of pressure off of the weekend.”
“Competing is what we are there for so I hated to see him on the side of the road on day one. Sometimes luck works in your favor and sometimes it is against you and that’s just the nature of this sport so sometimes you have to take what you can get.”
“I knew we just had to get through the event at that point to win the Championship. As we made it closer to the end of the rally, Nick and I realized that he still had a chance to win the Co-Driver championship if we won the power stage. There was also the possibility that if Hooper made up a few places he still could win at that point so I knew we had to go for it.”
“We had one pass to really give it a look and went for it on the second pass. Hooper had a puncture on the power stage which resulted in us taking the power stage win and points. We were able to finish the rally and clinch both the Driver and Co-driver O2WD National Championships which is what the goal was for our first full year as a new team.”
“I couldn’t be happier with the result. Hats off to Hooper for his pace this weekend though, he was flying and it would have been an entirely different rally under different circumstances. He would have been hard to catch.”
The rest of the podium was filled with American muscle, as the 2006 Mustang of Daniel Hayes and Boyd Smith finished second, while the 1969 AMC AMX took third.
Tim Rooney and Claudia Barbera won the LN4 Class as their main competition of Grzegorz Bugaj and Elizabeth Dziubanski crashed out on the first day of the rally, but second place Andy Didorosi was celebrating a big accomplishment with his silver medal earning him the 2024 ARA NA4WD Cup.
The NA4WD Cup is a year-long competition for the NA4WD Class with a different scoring system than the rest of the championships due to the average field size of the class from event to event.
Didorosi, co-driven this event by Jamie Willets, has been battling all year in his GC Impreza against recent WRC Beyond Rally Women’s Driver Development Program participant Madelyn Tabor and co-driver Sophia McKee for the Cup, and heading into the event it was still up for grabs between the two.
Despite close competition, Didorosi and Willets were able to take the Cup with a second-in-class finish, with Tabor and McKee in third.
Finally, in the L2WD class, it was 2022 L4WD Champion driver Chris Sladek taking the win in the HART Rally Team Acura Integra co-driven by Weston Davis.
Sladek came into the day in second place behind Chris Cyr and Glen Ray’s Bearly Cyrious Ford Fiesta ST, but an issue on SS12 lost them over seven minutes, dropping them to third in class, and allowing the Integra to take the win.
“We knew we had to come out of the gates strong for LSPR,” Sladek said, “but it still took a few stages to get the car setup dialed in to where I wanted it.”
“Roberto [Iglesias] and Chris [Cyr] were putting up some stellar times and Richo started reeling us back in so we had our work cut out for us. Thankfully the Integra just got better and better the more we asked of it so all that was left was to keep our pace up and run clean.”
“Weston didn't miss a note all weekend and the rest of the crew here and back home all led to the win this weekend. A win at LSPR is always the best way to close out a season.”
2024 L2WD Champions Richo Healey and Michelle Miller finished second overall in their Lexus IS250.
Roberto Iglesias and Sara Nonack Super Rallied after their retirement Friday to take fifth place, earning them second place in the L2WD Championship by just one point over Cyr and Ray.
National Classification After Saturday
Pastrana/Gelsomino (Subaru) 1h42m08.3s
Martell/Gelsomino (Subaru) +46.8s
Olivares/Miller (Ford) +9m29.2s
Booth/Dobbs (Ford) +15m57.0s
Rooney/Barbera (Subaru) +18m11.9s
Sladek/Davis (Acura) +22m01.9s
Healey/Miller (Lexus) +23m32.1s
Hayes/Smith (Ford) +24m47.8s
Moro/Holter (Chevy) +25m50.2s
O’Neil/Rajasalo (AMC) +25m50.4s
Photos by Jerry Winker, Steve Dressler and Charlie Discoe
Farrow Ekes out Pelizzari;
Nykanen and Randall Secure Class Championships
The Lake Superior Performance Rally Regional competition was some of the best the series has seen all year. With 46 teams entered, 19 of which were in the highly competitive NA4WD Class, there were bound to be tight battles. Still, close point totals fueled the flames of competition as the ARA Central Region Championship entered its penultimate round.
While a large portion of the field consisted of NA4WD competitors, the L4WD class fought for the top spot on the overall podium.
After Friday, Jimmy Pelizzari and Kate Stevens led the rally by 17.8 seconds in their 2002 Subaru WRX over the other 2002 WRX of John and Michael Farrow.
Pelizzari held the lead over the Farrow car for the first few stages of the day, but lost close to 30 seconds on SS12, Villikissa, allowing Farrow to take the lead by 6.6 seconds and then follow that up with another stage win on the next stage, Trouble.
In the end, John and Michael Farrow were able to turn their position at the end of Friday almost completely on its head, finishing 17.7 seconds ahead of Pelizzari.
The Farrows were also able to make big moves in the Central Region points, as John now sits just one point off the leader Matthew Nykanen in the Driver category, while Michael leads the Co-Driver category.
Speaking of Matthew Nykanen, he and co-driver Lars Anderson put their O2WD BMW 328i on the overall podium in third place, as well as the top spot of the O2WD Podium, earning Nykanen the O2WD Central Region Driver Championship, and putting Anderson in the lead of the Co-Driver points.
Nykanen and Anderson ended the day on Friday sitting fourth in class due to a two-minute penalty at the start of SS5, but after filing an inquiry with the stewards, the penalty was overturned, and they started Saturday first in class and third overall.
In the end, it didn’t matter that the penalty was overturned however, in the final stage of the rally they won the class by 5.1 seconds to put a two-minute and four-second gap between them and second place Mike Hurst and Randall Short.
“Friday started out less than ideal with a stuck caliper in the rear heading out to SS1,” Nykanen said. “When we got to hauling on Al’s, we quickly discovered that my rear shocks must’ve leaked the nitrogen charge out or something because they’d pogo the back end off the ground over large bumps.”
“That made me dial it back over the jumps unfortunately. We dealt with that the whole rally. Also got a flat tire on SS7 about 3 miles from finish, sent it anyways (welded diff for the win).”
“Things got a little spicy on SS12 when a late called R3+ turned into hanging the back end into the ditch and bending the rear trailing arm. We did the last 4 stages with a whole bunch of toe out on one side.”
“Somehow we managed to maintain 3rd Overall Regional, which keeps us in 1st for the Overall Central Regional Championship. It was an awesome event, Lars did an excellent job co-driving and we’re super stoked about the result!”
Second place in O2WD was also a close battle with just 1.7 seconds separating Hurst and Short’s Ford Capri in second and Doug Shepherd and Chris Labaere’s Dodge Neon SRT-4 in third.
The Neon managed to overtake the Capri on the second stage of the day and started building a lead, but retired from a mechanical issue on SS15, allowing the Capri to take silver, while Levi and Griffin Johnson took third in their BMW 325i.
James Randall and Andrew Rausch were also able to secure their 2024 Class Championship with a fourth-place finish in L4WD at LSPR. This is the pair's second time winning the L4WD Championship in a row having taken the title in 2023 as well.
“LSPR is always a tough event, the stages are hard and the competition is always strong,” Randall said. “This season Andrew and I worked a lot on our in-car communication specifically our vocabulary and distances. My callouts in recce a lot and are more detailed and more precise than last.”
“All season we have been building confidence in our stage notes and that really showed this year at LSPR. Although we did not podium this event, we felt really good about our performance, I think our average speed was 10mph faster at LSPR than it was at Ojibwe. This was only our second season in rally so we are very excited to have won the L4 championship for a second time. We are looking forward to carrying this momentum into the 2025 season.”
In the NA4WD class, Sam Jacques and Kyle Cooper led over Dylan Gondyke and Zach Stewart by just 5.2 seconds at the end of the first day of the rally, and that lead got taken away by Gondyke at the first possible chance, as after Al’s Playground Gondyke picked up an 8.2-second class lead.
Unfortunately for Gondyke, Jacques took the lead back on the next stage when Gondyke lost nearly 40 seconds on Villikissa, a gap that would be insurmountable on the remaining few stage miles.
Jacques and Cooper’s victory is the first they’ve earned in the ARA, an impressive feat in one of the most competitive fields the class has seen in a long time. Their fifth-place overall finish is also their best finish in their ARA career.
“Heading into the weekend with the new car, we knew it was going to be tough with the stacked field of cars. We expected to get beat up pretty bad on the fast stages on Friday, but held our own and ended the day in first by a little time.”
“Friday night we had clutch issues, resulting in us staying up until 4:00 am to get the car finished up. Silas Himes gave us the keys to his shop with a lift and make our lives much easier, so huge shoutout to him.”
“My co-driver and I ran all day Saturday on zero hours of sleep. We knew we had everyone in the rough stuff on Saturday, and we were correct after putting about 50 seconds on second place.”
“Our strong suit really lies in the tight/rough stages, and we had a blast on Saturday. We ended up cracking/chunking a total of three wheels between the two runnings of Vilikissa and Trouble, but everything held together and we were able to take home the win on the Marquette stages, our home turf.”
“Overall an awesome event, huge shoutout to our crew for busting butts and having the car ready to go, our families for all of the support and our sponsor Lake Superior Press.”
Aidan and John Hicks were able to hold on to their NA4WD Central Points lead with a third-place finish in the class as well.
The HART Rally Team took L2WD Wins in both the national and regional rallies, as Gabriel Nieves and Oliver Kokenge piloted the team’s 2017 Honda Civic to the regional class win at LSPR. Kokenge also currently leads the L2WD co-drivers points with one round left in the championship.
The rest of the podium was completed by second-place Tevfik Peker and Jamie Beliveau’s 2019 Fiesta, and driver points leader Brent Lucio and co-driver Tim Kohlmann’s 2017 Fiesta.
Photos by: Jerry Winker, Charlie Discoe, William Conley, Nathan Baxter
While LSPR is the final round of the 2024 ARA National Championship, the 2024 Regional Calendar still has one more event left, as Show-Me Rally takes place November 2nd, and will close out the ARA Central Region Championship.
For more information about the ARA, head to our website and get in touch!
~Mason Runkle for the ARA