Nease Nabs Overall at Rally Colorado

Photos via: Jon Seaton/Dash-N-Cars

Travis Nease continues his winning streak from Olympus at Rally Colorado. Nease and co-driver Danny Norkus crossed the end of SS14 at Columbine Park at 2h54m8.6s.

After yesterday's stages not too many position changes took place apart from when competitors retired, making the top positions relatively similar at the end of today.

Nease, despite giving up about three minutes to second place Jacob Despain, finished 3m8.2s ahead, and over 15 minutes ahead of Eric Genack, the L4WD runner up.

L4WD podium would see Nease and Genack rounded out with Jovan Kelsey and co-driver Kevin Schatz taking third place after catching Genak in SS12.

Todd and Valerie Briley who held a comfortable second at the end of Saturday retired out of SS9 today, leaving them out of the rankings.

The L2WD class got shaken up in SS10 with then leader Tim Wickberg retiring.

Scott McCart and co-driver Steve Bis would move up and take the top spot in the class with their Subaru BRZ with a time of 3h34m29.1s.

Henry and Jack Gillow-Wiles would finish second in class (+18m27.4s) in their Honda Civic, and Radek Wlodarczyk with a Honda Fit would round out the class in third (+47m42.4s)

NA4WD class saw every single stage end with the same 1-2-3 of Jacob Despain, Krishna Gandhi, and Taig Miller in that order.

Despain managed second overall behind only Nease, with a time of 2h57m16.8s. Gandhi finished +4m24.6s, and Miller +17m53.3s

O2WD lost its leader on SS8. Steven Olana in the 1985 Toyota Tercel had an off on Earl's Bad Day that resulted in retiring from the rally despite sitting second overall and first in class.

Many stages in this class saw the top three being separated by under 10 seconds, and Guagenti, Erik Christiansen, and Bret Hunter would all trade stage wins throughout the day as well.

In the end though, Guagenti and his BMW 3-series had just opened too much of a gap on the rest of the class to be caught, and still walked ahead of the pack a bit on most of the stages.

Guagenti took fifth overall with a time of 3h11m49.8s, with Andy Cowan in second at +5m10.1s, and Robert Shibao in third at +15m21.9s.

O4WD had Tyler Munger join back, but after retiring from yesterday, it would be too easy for Jacob Sturgeon to walk away with the class victory, over a half hour ahead of his only class competitor.

Rally Colorado Top 10 after SS14:

1. Travis Nease/Danny Norkus (Mitsubishi) 2h42m14.1s

2. Jacob Despain/Michael Despain (Subaru) +2m50.9s

3. Krishna Gandhi/Jake Baxter (Subaru) +7m00.5s

4. Eric Genack/Boyd Smith (Subaru) +14m15.3s

5. Peret Guagenti/Mitch Meadows (BMW) +16m17.8s

6. Taig Miller/Detrick Peterson (Subaru) +19m40.1s

7. Scott ScCarty/Steve Bis (Subaru) +20m26.2s

8. Andy Cowan/Richard Dickinson (Volkswagen) +21m27.9s

9. Jovan Kelsey/Kevin Schatz (Subaru) +23m01.4s

10. Diego De Castro/Ryan Hegel (Subaru) +24m30.2s

*All times are preliminary and subject to change