After a rally-long battle with the NA4WD Fervor Motorsports 1999 Subaru Forester, Jimmy Pelizzari and Sara Kate Stevens have won Blind Deer Rallysport their fifth Sno*Drift Regional Rally, and their first since moving to their new L4WD GD Bugeye Impreza WRX STI.
The rally started off Friday night as a learning experience for the Blind Deer crew, as Pelizzari and Stevens came into the event still learning the proper way to drive a turbo car in the slick conditions.
Tayler Hoevenaar and Steven Smith in the Fervor Motorsports car took advantage of their learning pace and quickly shot into the lead, holding the position as Pelizzari slowly clawed time back on them throughout the evening, finally overtaking them on SS6, only for a mistake on SS7 to drop them back into second, allowing Hoevenaar to take the lead and carry it into Saturday’s stages.
“The stages are awesome,” Pelizzari said at Parc Exposé Saturday morning, “and it's great to have snow again, which I think is what everyone's kind of saying is the big theme. The grip is pretty consistent all around, some slippy spots developed, but you know, we had a lot of fun.”
“It was a lot of learning and then right as we were kind of getting into the feel of things, we started making mistakes and, ended up having an Austin Powers moment, and then had a near-miss on a telephone pole. But other than that, the car is the one piece, we’re in one piece, so it's good to go for today, and we're just going to take it easy and see where we end up.”
Despite their pace, Hoevenaar and Smith were surprised by their own performance after the first day of racing.
“Friday was a little sketchy,” Hoevenaar admitted. “We had a couple of moments, so our current position doesn't quite add up for both of us, but we'll take it.
“We’re going to just keep doing what we're doing. We definitely like the stages better [Saturday]. They're a little more open and flowy. I think they might suit us a bit, but yeah, we'll see.”
While Hoevenaar and Pelizzari were first and second, respectively, after Friday night’s stages, the Green APU O4WD Mitsubishi Mirage of Alastair Scully and Stefan Trajkov, and the NA4WD 1998 Subaru Impreza of Camden Sheridan and Jeremy Frey were battling for third.
Scully held the position for a while, but issues on stage seven caused him a one-minute time loss, allowing Sheridan to take over the position and start Saturday’s action in third place overall, and second in NA4WD, while Scully started in fourth overall, leading O4WD.
Russel Senior and Cray Dumeah led the L2WD class in their 1995 Ford Escort for the first loop of stages on Friday. However, after getting stuck in a snowbank and having to be pulled out by the Sweep vehicle, Chris and Sara Nonack's Subaru BRZ was promoted to the class lead on SS5, which they held for the rest of the evening.
In O2WD Friday night, the 1995 Honda Civic of Emmons Hathaway and Nick Bukky battled back and forth with the Fiat 500 Abarth of Fabrizio Mirandola and Betsy Nguyen for the first loop, but eventually, the Civic pulled away and built a comfortable lead.
When it finally came time for Saturday’s rally to begin, Hoevenaar and Smith got right back to work, speeding through the stages, and holding a pace that would have netted them a top-five finish in the overall event if they had entered as a National team.
Unfortunately for the Fervor team, their car failed to start after the final service, forcing them to retire from the event, and allowing Pelizzari and Stevens to take their fifth victory at their home event.
“The conditions were excellent on Saturday,” said Pelizzari. “Nice snow, good grip, some slippiness in some spots, but just enough to keep it interesting. It got a little polished on the second run but still super fun.”
“[Hoevenaar] and [Smith] really took off and we really weren't going to be able to catch them, so we're feeling pretty sad that they went out the way they did.”
Pelizzari and Stevens also won the L4WD class, where the teams of Robert Dupree and Jason Hack, and Micheal Tirpak and Christopher Rotolo joined them on the podium.
Taking second overall and first in the NA4WD class, Camden Sheridan and Jeremy Frey drove a smart rally on Saturday, managing the gap to their competitors to hold a podium position, before letting loose on the final regional stage, Bonfire Alley, to take the overall stage win and end their weekend with the silver medal.
“We had a couple of mishaps here and there, like losing comms on the first leg, and we had a tire de-bead as well. Overall, it was just us trying to push the car and figure out the car, and this is our first official snow rally event, so we were really surprised to see where our numbers were, we were desperately trying to hunt down [Hoevenaar] for quite a while without crashing.”
“We're stoked that we were able to finish and stoked that we were able to podium, so yeah, really happy to be here.”
Photos by Up North Motorsports Media
Standing alongside Sheridan and Frey on the NA4WD podium were the War Weasel team of Dan Shirley and Stirling Fazio, as well as first-time competitors Naoki Ishibashi and Trevor Haight.
Third place behind them, Scully and Trajkov won their class as well with the green APU Mitsubishi Mirage.
“This is my first win,” Scully said. “In any class win, in anything in my whole life. I've never even won a race in school running or anything, this is like first, first ever win, so it's a great feeling.”
“It was a hard-fought battle to get on the overall podium. That’s another big one for us. It's my first overall podium.”
“The car was great. The conditions were super challenging. We just had a super tough time getting the power down, it was my first time in that car, so it was it was a challenge for us. We had a lot of fun and everything worked well, so stoked about it.”
Scully and Trajkov were joined on the podium by the other finishing team in their class, Bradley Hayosh, and Keegan Helwig.
In the L2WD class, the Nonacks were able to hold their position to take the class win in the Any% Subaru BRZ.
“It kind of couldn't have gone any better,” Chris said. “This was really fun. We had a lot of almost scary moments and a lot of really fun ones.”
The podium for the L2WD was completed by the teams of Chase Blakely and Michael Callaway, as well as Erik and Clarissa Votipka.
The Honda Civic of Emmons Hathaway and Nick Bukky earned a win as well as the sole surviving O2WD car in the regional field.
Regional Top 10
Jimmy Pelizzari/Kate Stevens - 2:09:02.3
Camden Sheridan/Jeremy Frey - 2:12:34.6
Alastair Scully/Stefan Trajkov - 2:16:38.7
Dan Shirley/Stirling Fazio - 2:20:13.3
Robert Dupree/Jason Hack - 2:22:45.8
Chris Nonack/Sara Nonack - 2:28:17.5
Michael Tirpak/Christopher Rotolo - 2:29:16.2
Emmons Hathaway/Nick Bukky - 2:36:32.3
Nick Luther/Matthew Harbert - 2:36:51.9
Chase Blakely/Michael Callaway - 2:39:19.4
For complete results, visit this LINK
~Mason Runkle, for the ARA