Booth Beats the Heat to Win Second Rally Colorado

masonrunkel
Jul 22
5 min read

(Rangely, CO – July 21, 2025) ~ Ryan Booth continued his streak of success last weekend, winning in dominant fashion at the Rangely-based Rally Colorado, round four of the 2025 American Rally Association (ARA) West Regional Championship.

Booth and co-driver Andy Hayes raced their Standard Motorsports Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 through the 95-degree heat of the Colorado desert, winning 10 of the 12 stages against a stacked field that included Subaru Motorsports USA’s (SMSUSA) multi-time National Champion Travis Pastrana, three-time reigning event winners Jacob and Michael Despain, and many more, all part of a 31-car field at the ARA’s growing Super Regional event.

Rally Colorado’s picturesque stages provided a stunning backdrop to the high-stakes competition as competitors battled each other, sandy surfaces, a high retirement rate, and mid-90s heat across the two-day event.

ARA All-Stars Find Success on Rally Colorado Stages

Right from the get-go on Saturday morning, the No. 689 Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 of Booth and Hayes powered into the lead on SS1, building a gap of over 20 seconds ahead of Jacob and Michael Despain of the Black Hole Rally Team in second.

SMSUSA struggled at the start of the rally in the desert heat, as Pastrana and co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino campaigned their new Limited Four-Wheel-Drive (L4WD) Subaru WRX ARA25L in the Centennial State for the first time.

The No. 199 sat third after SS1 but quickly moved into second on SS2. During the first service on Saturday, Subaru technicians implemented a fix to keep engine temperatures down, allowing Pastrana and Gelsomino to push harder for the remainder of the rally, ultimately claiming stage wins on SS10 and SS12.

Despite their efforts, lone RC2 entrants Booth and Hayes maintained a commanding lead and entered the final time control on Sunday with a four-minute advantage, securing the overall win. The result marked Booth’s second consecutive victory following his triumph at the Southern Ohio Forest Rally last month.

“It was a really good weekend!” Booth said after the rally. “The stages, scenery, and everything about this rally are why I come. It’s one of my favorites of the ARA calendar. The event ran flawlessly. I can’t thank the volunteers and organizers enough, and all credit to the Standard Motorsports boys for all their efforts this weekend. I’m looking forward to carrying the learnings from this weekend into the Ojibwe Forests Rally next month!”

Standing beside Booth and Hayes on the podium, Pastrana and Gelsomino enjoyed their first time rallying in Rangely, earning second overall, a win in the L4WD class, and two overall stage victories.

“It’s the end of a really successful Rally Colorado for us,” Pastrana said. “We learned a lot about the ARA25L, limited-class car. It faced huge jumps, huge holes, lots of sand, high elevation, high heat, and had no issues at all on Sunday with anything. I’m really, really excited for what the future holds for this car.”

While the SMSUSA crew stood atop the L4WD podium, Robert Shibao and Dillon McKenna finished second in the class with their 2002 Subaru WRX, and Diego De Castro and Boyd Smith took third in their 1991 Subaru Legacy.

The Open Four-Wheel-Drive (O4WD) class featured many familiar names from ARA National rounds nationwide, with teams making the trek to Colorado either for the first time or for the first time in many years.

Among them, Cameron Steely returned for the first time since 2018, now driving his Ford Focus RS. George Plsek brought his 2005 Mitsubishi Evo to Colorado for the first time, having previously won the 2005 Colorado Cog Rally in the Open Class. Todd Hartmann also made his Colorado debut, bringing his Ford Fiesta Proto to the stages.

With 10 cars in the class, competition was fierce from the start. Steely and co-driver Timothy Halliday initially took the lead, but a mechanical failure forced them to retire on the next stage, handing the top spot over to Plsek and co-driver Ole Holter.

Event regulars Steve Bis and Kelly Keefe held second place in their VW Golf R through Stage 2 but were overtaken by Hartmann and co-driver Shawn Callahan on SS3.

Despite the early shakeups, at the end of the 120 stage miles, Plsek and Holter earned the victory in O4WD, with Hartmann and Callahan second and Bis and Keefe third.

Event Regulars Prevail with Multiple Class Victories

While winning a fourth straight Rally Colorado was always going to be an uphill battle against the national-level teams and machinery that showed up this year, that didn’t stop the Black Hole Rally Team from trying. Jacob and Michael Despain gave it everything they had, as they always do, to prove themselves against the competition — and it paid off.

Right off the bat on SS1, their Naturally Aspirated Four-Wheel-Drive class (NA4WD) GC Subaru Impreza powered into second place, finishing ahead of the brand-new factory-backed SMSUSA car, before settling into third on SS2 behind Pastrana and Gelsomino.

While the rest of their rally didn’t involve high-stakes battles, they managed their pace well to stay ahead of Plsek and Hartmann. Their home-built Subaru endured the rough roads, high heat, and challenging Colorado conditions to take third overall.

“We secured third overall after a tough rally, and we couldn't be happier with the result,” Jacob Despain said. “We took a stage win over Pastrana, which was amazing, and the car performed perfectly. Can't wait to come out next year!”

The reliability of the Despains’ car proved an impressive achievement, as the NA4WD class experienced 50 percent attrition thanks to Colorado’s challenging conditions. Finishing second in class was the 2005 Subaru Impreza of Eliza Coleman and Ryan Scott, 21 minutes behind the Despains.

In the Open Two-Wheel-Drive (O2WD) class, 2024 overall podium finishers and class winners Steven and Lauren Olona once again took top honors in their 1985 Toyota Tercel Wagon. The unique Toyota BEAMS-swapped car is a sleeper by any definition of the word and proved once again to be a force at Rally Colorado, besting all of their O2WD competitors on all but one stage.

The classic Toyota was in good company on the O2WD podium, as the 1992 Lexus SC400 of James Veatch and Jenna Cooper finished second, and the 1985 Toyota Corolla of Brian Maskrey and Nate Olson took third.

Finally, in the Limited Two-Wheel-Drive (L2WD) class, Chris Miller defended his 2024 class win in his 2015 Scion FR-S with Crystina Coats at his side, navigating. The win marked the pair's third straight class win in the ARA West Region.

“It was great to come away with our third West Regional L2WD win in a row,” Coats said. “We love Rally Colorado; it's our third time doing this event together. The organizers really put it together, and the parc exposé with the parade through downtown was so fun! We’re looking forward to next year.”

While Miller and Coats held the class lead the whole event, the battle behind them was one of the most turbulent of the entire rally.

The 2003 Ford Focus of Fritz and Brooke Croy started the rally in second but dropped five positions to last in class after incurring more than three minutes of lateness penalties on SS3.

The pair fought hard over the next four stages, climbing back to second in class by the first stage on Sunday and holding station for the rest of the rally to finish on the podium.

Meanwhile, the teams of Radek Wlodarczyk and Cindi Carlson in their Honda Fit, and Cameron Gransee and Jacob Hickman in their Ford Fiesta, battled closely throughout the event, never much more than 30 seconds apart. Trading positions three times during the rally, Gransee and Hickman ultimately took the final podium position from Wlodarczyk and Carlson on the last stage of the rally, grasping third by just 25.5 seconds to earn their second class podium.

Complete results: https://www.americanrallyassociation.org/event-results