Detroit Lakes, Minn. ~ The American Rally Association heads north to the Land of 10,000 Lakes this weekend, as 39 teams prepare to compete in the sixth round of the 2024 National Championship, The Ojibwe Forests Rally.
With roots tracing back to 1980, the Ojibwe Forests Rally has been a staple of the sport in the US for years. Block, Choiniere, Pastrana, Mark and David Higgins, Buffum, Bomqvist, and more massive names have had the honor of standing on the top step of the podium over the years.
Ojibwe mainly consists of tight forest roads with a high level of technicality but also opens up in some areas to reveal a wide, high-speed section of road where competitors can go flat out.
This gravel rally is known for stages becoming heavily rutted throughout the event, as the sandy nature of the soil in the area allows tires to dig in deep, tearing up the road surface and quickly making for traction issues that only amplify as time goes on.
Apart from that, Ojibwe is one of the most scenic rallies of the ARA calendar, and the route tours teams through the lake-ridden forests of Minnesota, which in any other instance would be quaint and serene, but in this case are just the backdrop for some of the best rally racing in the country!
This year the rally is one of the longest on the calendar with 145 miles planned for the national competitors and 137 for the regional entries. The competition spans three days from Thursday, August 22 to Saturday, August 24.
Everything kicked off on Thursday evening at the Soo Pass Ranch concert venue as the Rally kick-off party hosted a Parc Exposé from 6:00-8:00 PM where fans could see the cars up close and meet the drivers in person. At 7:00 PM, cars one-by-one started rolling into their first time control as they took to the rally-starting Super Special on the Soo Pass Ranch grounds.
The 0.54-mile stage wasn't too much of a struggle for drivers, but they’ll still needed to be on their game to ensure they kicked off the rally on the right foot.
Friday the real intensity begins as the first car leaves the Pioneer Farms Service Park for the forest stages at 1:00 PM.
Friday’s racing will consist of eight stages as teams will take on a loop consisting of the Thorpe Tower, Refuge, Kabekona, and Steamboat stages before returning for a 45-minute service and repeating the same loop for a total of nearly 70 stage miles on the first day of the rally.
Saturday starts earlier with the first car leaving service at 10:00 AM. Competitors will complete the Otterkill, Kanten Trail, Height o’Land, and Anchor Mattson stages before returning for a short 30-minute service and repeating the process once again.
For Regional competitors, their rally will end here, but for the 22 National entries, after another 30-minute service they take to the stage one last time for another shot at Otterkill, this time the Power Stage.
The competition lined up for Ojibwe is fierce. A total of 39 cars will compete with 22 National entries and 17 Regional.
Championship leaders Brandon Semenuk and Keaton Williams enter the sixth round with a massive 50-point lead over second-place Travis Pastrana and Rhiannon Gelsomino.
While Pastrana has gone a while without an outright win, Ojibwe could be his chance to make a comeback and take the top spot. Historically, Ojibwe has been one of Car 199’s best rallies, with seven wins at the event over his career.
Both Subaru Motorsports USA teams will be joined this time by a third Vermont SportsCar entry, the 2015 WRX STI of Connor Martell and Alex Gelsomino. Fresh off of their win at the Boone Forest Rally, the pair will be competing in their first ARA National round together this weekend, and Martell’s first ARA National since the Oregon Trail Rally in 2018.
“Connor and I are here to gain experience,” said Gelsomino, “we’re looking forward to seeing all the fans, and getting to log more miles together because that’s what the plan is for this year!
“This event has a very sandy base surface, today we experienced that at testing, where after a few runs the road was so sandy and soft that the road just got destroyed, and the road was very dry to begin with.
“So it’s an extra challenge, and it’s a very unique scenario that you don’t experience on any of the other seven rounds of the championship, so as a driver, it is important to come here and do a test and experience this prior to the event, otherwise it takes nearly a whole event to realize how different this grip is.”
“This is one of the best events in the championship, not just because of the organizer, they do such a good job, they have such a good team up here, and also the rally scene in this area is quite good. But the highlight for me is the roads. The roads are just beautiful. They remind me a lot of Scandinavian roads and things like that, minus the big jumps, but it’s sort of similar forests. The grip is very different though.”
The addition of Martell means VSC has the opportunity to sweep the podium if all three can keep it clean through the Minnesotan woods.
A couple of other competitors will be looking to spoil that celebration though. Capable cars like the O4WD Subaru “Chimera” BRZ of Matthew Dickinson and Chris Kremer, and the V8 Chevy Sonic of Pat Moro and Ole Holter will be pushing to make the podium, but among them will be the long-time rally specialist George Plsek in his 2005 Mitsubishi Evo, who is returning to Ojibwe for the first time in 10 years, this time with co-driver Danny Persein at his side.
“I have always enjoyed this event in the past and was looking for an opportunity to come back,” Plsek explained.
“My co-driver Danny Persein from Prague, Czech Republic, who runs the Czech Championship there, ran with me in Oregon Trail last year and we had a mechanical DNF, and I thought bringing him back and showing him Ojibwe, which is very technical and challenging would be a pretty fun way for him to experience a US event.”
In the RC2 class, the lone team of John Coyne and Eoin Treacy will be back again and also gunning for their first overall podium this year, after coming close multiple times.
Javier Olivares and KJ Miller have also proven they have the skill and ability to put their Rally3 Fiesta on the podium too though, and should be in the mix to take a podium spot by all means, although they’ll likely have another goal in mind.
Olivares and Miller are a mere 11 points away from mathematically securing the LN4 Championship for the 2024 season, so finishing fourth or higher among their class competitors will seal them as the season’s champions with two more events left on the calendar.
The well-proven Rally3 should be more than capable of placing fourth or higher, but the 2015 WRX STI of Tim Rooney and Claudia Barbera will certainly be trying to keep it at bay as they look for the LN4 win.
Beyond those two, the rest of the LN4 entrants fall on the NA4WD side, with the familiar faces of Andy Didorosi and Madelyn Tabor both back to fight for the NA4 Cup, where they currently sit just one point apart, with Didorosi in the lead. Didorosi will be joined by co-driver Jamie Willets, and Tabor will be back with Sophia McKee once again.
Of course, the tightly contested year-long battle for the L2WD Cup isn’t taking a break for Ojibwe. The top four cars are all entered and are all within a close enough point spread to take the lead if the weekend goes well for them.
Richo Healey and Michelle Miller still lead the championship in their Lexus IS250, and they’ve already got experience here to fall back on. Last year Ojibwe was the pair’s first event together, where they won the Regional L2WD class. This year, they look to take that victory national.
“Ojibwe last year was my first event with Michelle,” Healey explained. “I’m super excited to be back here since we've made a ton of progress since then.”
“This rally is super fun, narrow roads with enough variety to keep you on your toes and a phenomenal power stage is going to keep us all busy. And the L2WD battles are going to be huge as this thing crescendos toward the end of the season!”
Miller echoed Healey’s sentiments, stating, “Ojibwe is one of my favorite rallies in the championship, and this will be my 7th running of the event. It will be fun to be tackling the stages with Richo again as we battle in a highly contested L2 championship!”
Second place and just ten points behind, Mark Tabor and Katheryn Hansen will be looking to take any points they can from the Lexus, but they’ll also be fighting with John Sharps who sits just four points back in third in the HART Rally team Acura Integra.
Perhaps most threatening will be Roberto Yglesias and Sara Nonak in the Pura Vida Rally Ford Fiesta ST, as they have the most consistently high speed factor of the lot, and are determined to make up the points deficit from fourth,
“We’re ready and happy to be back after the two-month break!” Yglesias said. “We didn’t do any races since Southern Ohio Forest Rally, and that ended a little earlier than we wanted it to due to the gearbox problems, so we’re eager to get back on the horse and get a good three days of racing done, and to get back in the fight for the championship. We’re here, we’re ready, we have all the intentions of coming out with a win.”
Other L2WD entries include the 2015 Fiesta ST of Henry Tabor and Ethan Curtis and the 1977 Dodge Colt of Erich Hopf and Calvin Gehlhausen.
Finally, in the O2WD class, three of this year’s stalwarts will be battling it out with RWD flair. Seamus Burke and Gary McElhinney are back in the V8-powered MkII Ford Escort to take on Micheal Hooper and Michael Hordijk in their Lexus IS350, while Keenan Philips and Salina Melotti continue their tour of the country with their fan-autographed BMW 328i.
In the Regional Event, John and Michael Farrow will be aiming to expand their respective driver and co-driver leads in the ARA Central Championship. The pair’s N4WD 2004 WRX is the favorite to win the regional rally, but class competitors Aidan and John Hicks will be looking to take the top spot after three straight silver medals together in the class.
Travis Mattonen and Anikka Nykanen will also be looking for a good finish in the NA4WD to continue their three-event streak together of earning class podiums in their 1996 Impreza, while Richard and Greg Donovan return got their first rally since Headwaters to run in Ojibwe.
Farrow’s strongest competition could come in the form of an O2WD 1998 BMW 328i, as Matthew Nykanen and Lars Anderson start second on the road. The pair each sit third in their driver and co-driver points standings, so a strong showing at Ojibwe could tip the points in their favor.
They’ll have enough to worry about in their own class though, as the beautiful 1974 Ford Capri RS of Mike Hurst and Randal Short will be right on their heels pushing for the top spot on the class podium, and family ties could further the pressure as Josh Nykanen and Charlotte Himes will be representing the FWD side of things in their 1987 Volkswagen Golf GTI.
The Regional L4WD will also be a battle to watch, as award-winning stuntman Tyler Witte returns to the ARA for the first time in four years with a beautiful freshly built Mitsubishi Evo IV with Cindi Carlson in the passenger seat.
To get the top spot in his return event, Witte will have to battle off a field of Subarus, including the 2002 WRX of Scott Crouch and Ryan Scottm the 2015 WRX of James Randall and Andrew Rausch, the 2002 Impreza of Peter Farrow and Ian Nelson, and the 2004 WRX of Jason Cook and Margaret Tu.
L2WD has four regional entries. Matthew and Richard Shinn are first on the road of the group in their 2002 Ford Focus, followed by the 2006 Honda Civic Si of Sebastian Salgado and Adolfo Espinosa. Brent Lucio and Stefan Tajkov will be competing in their 2017 Ford Fiesta, and Nino Ortega and Boyd Smith finish out the class with their 1986 Golf GTI.
Finally, Calvin and Caryl Bergen stand out as the lone entrants in O4WD with their 2011 Subaru WRX STI.
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~Mason Runkle, for the ARA with photos by Erik Sils & Toua Herr