Newport, Tenn. (Sept 14, 2024) ~ With just one-third of the total stage mileage complete, Overmountain Rally Tennesse has already proven to be one of the most exciting rallys of the 2024 American Rally Association National Calendar in its debut year.
The warm, sunny Tennessee weather welcomed 49 teams to the Overmountain Rally Saturday morning, as they prepared for 44 miles of the most technical roads the Appalachian Mountains have to offer, but the stages bit back as in just seven stages, 13 cars retired from the first day of the rally.
While the tight, technical roads of Overmountain Rally are some of the most engaging, and exciting stages many teams have faced, the hidden rocks, roadside hazards, and unforgiving nature of the mountain trails are unforgiving and ready to ruin the rally of any team that slips up for a second.
Despite this, Saturday’s rally action brought with it some of the most exciting competition the ARA has seen all year and threw a wrench into the plans of many a championship hopeful, already taking its place as one of the most engaging rallies to follow all year.
As part of Saturday’s competition, teams competed across six forest stages, including 1800-foot climbs, and 1400-foot descents through the Tennessee Mountains, followed by a Super Special on the high-banked 0.4-mile Newport Speedway, which saw competitors face-off in a “head-to-head” style format with two cars lapping the track at a time.
After the first seven stages, just 30 seconds separate the top three overall, and many other class battles are similarly close as teams prepare for a difficult Sunday as they face over 85 more miles of Overmountain’s best roads.
McErlean Puts Pressure on Subaru
Much like in his last ARA appearance at Olympus Rally in 2021, Josh McErlean has proven to be a serious competitor this weekend at the Overmountain Rally in John Coyne’s Hyundai i20N Rally2 car.
“I think that the stages are incredible and obviously there’s a lot in them as everyone knows from us rallying that’s quite different,” McErlean said Saturday morning, “and to be back here in the States and sandwiched in between two Subarus is something I’m looking forward to.”
After an hour of stage action spanning 45 miles, Subaru Motorsports USA’s Brandon Semenuk and Keaton Williams lead, but only by a 16.7-second margin over the Motorsport Ireland duo of McErlean and co-driver Eoin Treacy.
“They’re fun stages,” Semenuk said after SS3, Big Cliffty. “Nice and tricky, but we’re enjoying it. I’m doing alright but it’s some work in the car for sure. The grip’s maybe a little bit oversteery feeling, it’s turning nicely, so we’re trying to carry the momentum.”
While Semenuk has led the whole day, he hasn’t been able to get comfortable in his lead, as McErlean has beaten him outright in a couple of stages, winning SS4, “Wasp” over both SMUSA cars.
“This is probably the only rally in the world that a Rally2 can keep up with these Subarus,” SMUSA driver Travis Pastrana explained to ARA Media Partner DirtFish earlier in the day., “[McErlean] might be a better driver than all of us, but at the end of the day, it is just hairpin, hairpin, hairpin.”
“I’ve got arm pump, I’ve never had arm pump before driving a car, but this is a lot more fun than I expected.”
Pastrana and co-driver Rhiannon Gelsomino, usually known for success on high-speed, high-commitment events have also had an impressive showing at Overmountain so far, also picking up a stage win over his technical driving teammate, and now sitting just over 30 seconds off the lead after sweeping the road all day.
“I had a lot of fun today. Had some big moments, big cliffs, trees, maybe pulled the hand brake 50 times today just backing it in,” Pastrana said after the forest stages.
“Unfortunately dropped 30 seconds today. Sweeping the road didn’t help us, but it wasn’t all sweeping the road. Brandon’s definitely on it, Josh jumping in with that Rally2 car, really impressive work from him today. We’re sitting third for tomorrow, and we’ll keep fighting.”
But while the top three sit within half a minute of each other, equally impressive is the Rally3 Fiesta of Dean Johnston and Alex Kihurani in fourth, beating out two Rally2 cars, and an R5+.
“We’re in a Rally3 and [the top three] are in a Rally2 and Factory Subarus so we’re down about 100 plus horsepower to those guys,” Johnston explained to DirtFish’s Brenten Kelly after SS3, “and they’re all fresh, they’ve been rallying all season long and it’s my first time behind the wheel in a year and a half. I'm more than happy enough, for me that’s not the objective this weekend, it’s more just to get back into the rhythm and enjoy the rallying with Alex.”
Javier Olivares and KJ Miller sit second in the RC2 class and round out the top five overall in their debut event in their Ford Fiesta Rally2 after winning the LN4 Championship last time out at the Ojibwe Forests Rally, while Paul Rowley and Enda McCormack sit sixth and seventh ready to pounce the second any of the top-five make a mistake.
While the L2WD class looked like the most exciting battle coming into this rally as Richo Healey and Michelle Miller try to claim their championship with a podium finish as Roberto Yglesias tried to stop them, the competition in the class got turned on its head after both cars had to retire from the rally Saturday.
Yglesias immediately made his presence known at Overmountain soaring into a 32-second lead over the L2WD class on SS1, and expanding that lead to nearly 40 seconds by the end of the first loop.
Things looked even better for Yglesias and co-driver Ulices Agesta after a small off for Championship leaders Healey and Miller caused them to retire from day one on SS3.
Unfortunately for Yglesias and the Pura Vida Rally Team, a log that had been brought into the road by one of the earlier cars on stage on SS4, Wasp caused a soft rollover, and their Ford Fiesta ST ended up on its roof, making for massive setbacks for both L2WD points leaders in the penultimate round of the championship.
In their place, the Bearly Cyrious Fiesta ST of Chris Cyr and Glen Ray stormed into the lead, and currently holds a one-minute 27-second lead over second place Chris Sladek and Cole Clements heading into day two of the rally.
“After recce I was looking forward to SS1, Wasp,” Cyr said. “I got the car dialed in on testing and we started the stage and I had it totally wrong.”
“We made it through the stage and made some changes for SS3 and when we got to run Wasp again we were pushing because we were behind Roberto then pulling up to SS5 we saw Tim O’Neil And no Roberto.”
“Tim told me that Roberto was on his roof and from there my plan changed from pushing to more conservative driving.”
“The super special tonight was an amazing experience to see fans in the stands have some head-to-head rally competition. I think it’s a great, creative way for the event to try to draw more fans to rally in general, especially in the South where they are used to sitting in stands. We are really looking forward tomorrow to the long stage.”
“I brought my family with me this weekend and I hope to bring home the win so they can see me on the podium!”
In O2WD, Michael Hooper’s home-field advantage is helping his and Michael Hordijk’s performance as their Lexus IS350 leads by 32 seconds over the V8-powered Mk2 Escort of Seamus Burke and Gary McElhinney.
Hooper started the day in second place behind the Mk2 Escort of Ryan Booth and Nock Dobbs, but after Booth suffered a retirement on SS3, Hooper inherited the lead and went on to win the remainder of Saturday’s stages, minus the Super Special which was won by Burke.
“Those are my kind of roads!” Hooper told DirtFish. “Tight and technical, but still lots of grip.”
And finally, while Johnston and Kihurani lead LN4, Mark Piatkowski and Aris Mantopolous sit second in the class, and eighth overall as the first home-built car on the leaderboards.
“The roads are extremely tight and technical but it’s the surface that’s the cherry on top, Piatkowski said of the roads on Saturday. “It has embedded rocks in many sections so puncture and wear risk is very high.”
“For me, we are pretty much the best of the rest that’s not Rally2 or Rally3, and we are pretty happy with that. We are trying to maintain momentum wherever possible and keep a clean nose. Seems to be working.”
National Classification after SS7
Semenuk/Williams (Subaru) 1h1m26.8s
McErlean/Treacy (Hyundai) +16.7s
Pastrana/Gelsomino (Subaru) +30.7s
Johnston/Kihurani (Ford) +2m44.6s
Olivares/Miller (Ford) +4m52.1s
Rowley/Kennedy (Ford) +6m7.9s
McCormack/McCormack (Hyundai) +6m33.6s
Piatkowski/Mantopoulos (Subaru) +8m21.1s
Hooper/Hordijk (Lexus) +9m53.2s
Burke/McElhinney (Ford) +10m21.5s
Allen and Gondyke Neck-and-Neck for Regional Rights
In the Regional rally, 24 teams started SS1 to compete for points in the East Region Championship, and after the first seven stages, it’s the NA4WD Rally Cats GC Impreza of Kevin Allen and Liz Cordara leading overall.
Allen is chasing his first-ever overall win in his 18th start behind the wheel this weekend, but he and Cordara have some of the stiffest competition they could imagine as three-time reigning East Regional Champion Dylan Gondyke co-driven this weekend by Zach Stewart in hot on their tail, just 22.6 seconds off of the leaders.
Tom and Karl Mayer led the regional rally through SS3, but dropped back to fourth on SS4, before retiring on SS5.
Allen and Cordara won three of the six stages Saturday with Gondyke taking one, but both cars have been evenly matched, often trading times between splits, and even finishing just one second apart on the second running of the 11-mile “Wasp” stage.
Gondyke may have an advantage going into Sunday’s stages though, as on Saturday he faced small mechanical issues on both forest stage loops, with a loose rear corner on the first loop, while a sheared axle on SS6 left him with three-wheel drive for part of the stage.
As the cherry on top of the battle, Allen and Gondyke faced off head-to-head at Newport Speedway for the Super Special to finish off the day, where Gondyke led over Allen by 1.3 seconds.
While Gondyke and Allen are fighting for the overall and NA4WD lead, third on the leaderboards, Andrew Williamson and Julia Stewart are also hopeful for a good points day at the end of Sunday, as they currently lead the NA4WD points, and sit second behind Gondyke in the overall standings.
Allen and Gondyke aren’t the only close battle in the regional rally though. Even closer than those two are the ANY% Subaru BRZ of Chris and Sara Nonack and the Honda Fit of Nicholas Bukky and Emmons Hathaway.
With six stages completed on Saturday, each team holds three stage wins, with the largest gap between them at any point in the rally being just 3.2 seconds after SS5.
Nonack started in the lead, but after SS3 the two cars were tied to the tenth of a second. Following that, both cars traded position after each stage, including the Super Special, in which Nonack came out on top, and led the class by just 2.1 seconds heading into Sunday’s stages.
“These roads are great!” Nonack said after SS7. “Super technical, some fun tarmac, and an awesome Super Special- happy to have Bukky to battle with here, I'm having a great time!”
Sitting just outside of the overall podium after day one, Mike Cessna and Jamie Lambert lead the O2WD class in their BMW M3, an impressive feat for a powerful rear-wheel-drive car on such technical mountain roads. The pair spent much of the day inside the top three after Tom and Karl Mayer’s retirement but were overtaken by Williamson and Stewart on SS6.
Cessna and Lambert also won the Super Special, completing two laps of Newport Speedway (with four jumps) in 42.1 seconds, and currently lead their class over Gavin James and Jamie Beliveau by over 14 minutes.
James Pryzbylkowski and Ethan Curtis lead the L4WD class over Drew Staples and Leah Brisset after inheriting the lead from Tom and Karl Mayer. Meanwhile, Nick Bragg and Cominic Depaoli lead O4WD as the lone competitors in their class in their Audi S2.
Tomorrow competitors face seven stages totaling over 80 miles in the National rally, while regionals will compete across six stages for more than 65 miles of Tennessee action, before finishing the day at Yee-Haw Brewing in Johnson City.
For more about the Overmountain Rally Tennessee, head to our social media channels, and check out coverage from our official media partners, DirtFish.
Regional Classification after SS7
Allen/Cordara (Subaru) 1h11m34.8s
Gondyke/Stewart (Subaru) +22.6s
Williamson/Stewart (Subaru) +2m1.2s
Cessna/Lambert (BMW) +2m26.5s
Shirley/Eisele (Subaru) +3m26.2s
Pryzbylkowski/Curtis (Subaru) +4m21.3s
Nonack/Nonack (Subaru) +5m12.6s
Bukky/Hathaway (Honda) +5m14.7s
Snyder/Nguyen (Honda) +9m53.4s
Staples/Brisset (Subaru) +10m26
~Mason Runkle, for the ARA