You're probably familiar with Sno*Drift Rally, the season opener for the American Rally Association presented by DirtFish National Championship. The rally takes place in Atlanta, Michigan and its surrounding towns, and is known for being exceptionally difficult due to the snowy/icy conditions, and disallowance of studded tires.
What you might not know about is Sno*Drift's sister event, the Sno*Drift Summer rally, part of ARA's regional calendar.
Taking place on many of the same roads but during the summer, and lacking the titular snow, Summer Sno*Drift is an entirely different event compared to the winter one.
With Summer Sno*Drift coming up this weekend, here's what you need to know about ARA's next regional round.
The Schedule:
Racing will begin on Saturday, July 17 at noon with the first loop lasting until 1:50pm. From there, two more similarly timed loops will take place on the same day at 2:05pm and 5:00pm.
Fist car is expected to be finished around 6:45, with provisional scores posted by 7:30, and the awards ceremony at Briley Park at 8:00 to finish of the day.
The Competitors:
Summer Sno*Drift has a small entry list this year, but don't mistake that for a lack of talent. At the top of the entry list is Jimmy Pelizzari with Blind Deer Rallysport in his recently turbo'd O4WD 2001 Subaru Impreza.
Nathan Usher of Sneak Attack Rally will be making an appearance in his Subaru Outback Sport 3.0R, marking his first appearance at an ARA round this year. Usher, the reigning champion, won last time out in 2019 over Pelizzari by just under a minute.
Another successful Summer Sno*Drift team making their return is Michael and Lauren Engle. Two podiums from their four previous entries gives them good odds of placing high, or even pulling a win finally.
Robert Sanders will make an appearance in his Subaru Impreza WRX STI after having run the past few events in a rented McKenna Motorsport Ford Fiesta R5.
L2WD class will see previous class winner Santiago Iglesias in his 2013 BRZ face off against the Pontiac Vibe GT of Doug Gekiere, one of only two people to have competed in every Summer Sno*Drift so far.
Always a crowd-pleaser, Al Dantes Jr. will also be present in his LS powered Mazda RX-7 running in the O2WD class.
For a full list of entries so you know exactly who to root for, click here.
The Stages
There will be 10 stages run from three loops with many of the stages being repeated three times. As mentioned, these stages will be on the same roads as the regular Sno*Drift, so a similar flowing rally is expected, just with far more grip available to drivers.
There will be about 50 stage miles in total, giving drivers a good days worth of rallying.
The most notable thing about the stages though is that no recce is allowed, and no Jemba notes are given. Co-drivers will only have "Tulip Notes," basically a route-book that would typically be given to competitors for recce, and the stages will have to be driven by watching the tree-line, and being able to anticipate what comes next.
Spectating
Spectating will be open at Sno*Drift for the first time since January 2020! There are two spectator areas planned giving spectators three or four passes to watch depending on which one you go to.
If you plan on spectating, you can find a link to the spectator guide here. There are more details about
An estimated schedule of when you can expect cars where can be found below:
For more details, follow the links below: