Paul Rowley has re-established himself in second place on the Lake Superior Performance Rally, as several of the crews contending for a top-five finish have either hit trouble on the stages or been dealt time losses away from them.
Saturday’s second loop consistent of two stages, and both were convincingly won by the rally leader Ken Block.
In second place each time was Rowley, who had gone into the loop 0.3 seconds behind Joseph Burke’s second place.
Burke dropped 4.6s and lost his second place to Rowley on SS11, then came to a stop early in SS12 with what DirtFish believes to have been a front suspension failure.
That promoted Dave Carapetyan to fourth, and he was just a few seconds ahead of Kyle Tilley before the latter had 2m30s added to his overall rally time as a penalty for late entry to service.
Mitsubishi Lancer driver Will Graham slotted between them into fourth place, despite the Mitsubishis rarely showing pace capable to fighting the top four.
Tilley is now fifth and with a gap of 1m56.6s to George Plsek who for similar reasons has had 2m20s added to his overall time.
Mark Piatkowski is even further back behind them in seventh, and the leader of the Naturally Aspirated runners, and he had a gear issue that stopped his challenge for higher places.
Zachary Jacques, who like Piatkowski fields a four-wheel-drive Subaru, started the loop in fifth but he got a one-minute penalty on SS11 and then stopped halfway through SS12 and is yet to get going again.
Mike Hurst is the top two-wheel-drive entrant in 14th overall, and in his Ford Capris has a 6.3s advantage over the AMC-driving Tim O’Neil who now sits second in class.