Detroit Lakes, Minn.~ After 145 miles, 18 stages, and three days of some of the most exciting rallying we’ve seen this year, the 2024 Ojibwe Forests Rally has been won by Subaru Motorsports USA’s Travis Pastrana and Rhiannon Gelsomino, marking Pastrana’s eighth win at Ojibwe, and first win since 2021.
Ojibwe marks the sixth round of the 2024 American Rally Association National Championship, as well as the fourth round of the ARA Central Region Championship, with 39 cars competing across both competitions.
The rally kicked off with a party, parc exposé, and spectator stage at the Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes Thursday night, where fans were treated to a half-mile stage on the Ranch grounds as competitors got their first taste of the rally.
Friday afternoon the forest stages began, and with dry weather and dry roads, the sandy dirt that comprises the roads quickly became soft and turned to ruts, making for challenging conditions for competitors as they made their way through the technical stages of Ojibwe.
Saturday brought more of the same as competitors fought tooth and nail for positions and points as the National and Regional Championships both head towards their final few events.
Pastrana Lands Victory as Rock Ruins Semenuk’s Chances
Possibly the most surprising storyline to come out of Friday’s forest stages was the retirement of championship leaders Brandon Semenuk and Keaton Williams from the sixth stage of the rally.
The crew of the No. 1 Subaru WRX were making their way through the Thorpe Tower stage when they made contact with a massive rock in the road which disabled the car and caused them to retire from the first day of the rally.
With both Semenuk and Williams okay, and the car eventually able to return to service under its own power, the team worked hard to get the Championship leaders back on stage for Saturday under Super Rally regulations.
Semenuk’s retirement from the lead meant that teammates Travis Pastrana and Rhiannon Gelsomino were able to power into first place and continue to build their gap to now second-place Connor Martell and Alex Gelsomino.
Semenuk and Williams were far from the only retirements from the first loop on Friday though. The O4WD Subaru BRZ of the El Diablo Rally team met a sad end on SS4, Kabekona, when it rolled, hitting a tree and causing a permanent retirement. Driver Matthew Dickinson and Co-Driver Chris Kremer were both okay, although the team confirmed on Facebook that Kremer is receiving medical treatment.
Saturday, the rally action started at 10:25 am on the Otterkill stage, which would be run three times for the National competitors, including once as the Power Stage.
Semenuk was back under Super Rally regulations and quickly set about winning eight of Saturday’s nine stages, including the Power Stage, earning him an extra five championship points.
Despite his prowess, Friday’s retirement meant that Semenuk would be far back in the standings, but even with the large amount of time added to their rally, Semenuk and Williams managed to move from 16th to ninth place over the course of Saturday's rallying.
In the end, though, it was Pastrana and Gelsomino who stood atop the podium victorious for the first time since Ojibwe in 2021.
Impressively, Connor Martell managed second place in his first ARA National entry since 2018. The Nitrocross driver was paired once again with Alex Gelsomino who has been working closely with Martell to learn notes and improve his on-stage performance.
0.4 Seconds Decides Heated L2WD Battle
Photos by Toua Herr
Once again this season the L2WD class proved to be the closest competition, as the Ford Fiesta of Roberto Yglesias and Sara Nonack entered a fierce battle with the Lexus IS250 of Richo Healey and Michelle Miller, with less than half a second separating the two after over two hours of racing.
Mechanical issues at the start of the rally put Yglesias and Nonack fifth in class after the half-mile spectator stage Thursday night. Still, eventually, they were able to get the car working properly and claw back time from championship leaders Healey and Miller.
“It’s a really tight battle,” said Yglesias after SS9. “We have been fighting an issue in the car since yesterday, which is why we had such a bad time on the super special, and in the loop this morning we had power cutting out, so we were losing power.”
“The car was not only underpowered but also at random times the throttle would not respond and we couldn’t go forward. We lost a bunch of time in the morning with that, but we fixed it in service. We had to swap the throttle pedal and change some stuff in the tune to make it work.”
“We were a little bit conservative on anything rough because we want to finish the rally, but Richo was sending it and gave us a good fight, so it’s super tight going into tomorrow. It'll be a fun day of battling it out with him. I’m happy we were able to make the time that we lost in the morning on the stages in the afternoon, but by no means was it a slam dunk, it was pretty tight, and I think tomorrow we’re going to be trading times with him.”
On the final day of the rally, conditions were near perfect for a hard push, as dust was down, meaning despite being further back in the running order, both cars had clear lines of sight on stage and didn’t need to back off.
Healey and Miller managed to take the lead back by six seconds over Yglesias and Nonack on Saturday’s first stage and stayed just ahead of them for most of the day winning four of Saturday’s first eight stages.
Yglesias and Nonack once again pushed hard to make the time back up, and after winning the other half of the first eight stages, they managed to pass the Lexus on SS18, taking the lead by just 3.2 seconds.
With just the Power Stage left, both teams went all out for the final stage of the event as they pushed for the win.
Yglesias and Nonack in the Pura Vida Rally Fiesta started off ahead, leading Healey and Miller to the first split by over three seconds, but by the second split, the Lexus pulled ahead by two seconds.
Finally, at the final time control, it was Healey and Miller who took the win but just four-tenths of a second over Yglesias and Nonack, expanding their Championship lead over the rest of the highly competitive field.
Henry Tabor and Ethan Curtis also made a statement in their first event with their 2015 Ford Fiesta ST, finishing third in class in one of the most competitive L2WD fields to date.
L2WD also had retirements cause shakeups in the championship standings though, as second-place Mark Tabor and Katheryn Hansen suffered a mechanical on SS4, but were able to return for Saturday’s stages.
Olivares and Miller Land Second LN4 Championship in a Row
The large number of Open-class retirements meant that the L4WD Rally3 Ford Fiesta of Javier Olivares and KJ Miller sat third overall at the end of the day on Friday. The team also led the LN4 class comfortably with a six-minute advantage over Tim Rooney and Claudia Barbera’s 2015 WRX STI.
Saturday Olivares and Miller managed to put the pieces together, earning LN4 win and third-place overall, as well as the 2024 ARA LN4 National Championship.
The pair have been a force to be reckoned with this year in their Ford Fiesta Rally3, and have made easy work of the Championship, and taken the title for the second year in a row.
“We’ve had an incredible year so far,” Miller said after the rally. “Very happy to cap off the championship two events early at Ojibwe. Incredible rally, incredible roads. Now we get to go play with the new toy!”
Reliability Proves Key in O2WD
The O2WD class had its share of drama at Ojibwe, as Seamus Burke and Gary McElhinney led the class in their V8-powered Ford Escort MKII until their untimely retirement on SS4 with drivetrain issues.
The loss of the Escort meant Keenan Phillips and Salina Melotti were able to take the lead, as Michael Hooper and Michael Hordijk lost four minutes on SS2, Thorpe Tower, to a puncture.
Slowly over the rest of the day, however, Hooper drove his Lexus IS350 back to the lead, and by the end of Friday’s stages, he sat five minutes over Phillips who suffered a broken half-shaft in the second loop of the day.
“We had a great day,” Hooper said after SS9, “it started out really rough with a flat about a mile and a half into stage one. Tried to drive it out, but tire came apart after a couple of miles and we had to change it on stage.”
“Started to get a rhythm or two later and we’ve been having a ton of fun and clawing back some time. The roads are really good. A lot of dust but good grip and fantastic rhythm both in the fast and slow sections.”
“Unfortunately, Seamus got caught out with a drive train issue so it’s up to us to not be stupid tomorrow and get to the finish. That’s hard sometimes.”
Hooper and Hordijk kept it clean and on the road Saturday, to cruise to victory, earning the Lexus its first victory of the 2024 season.
National Provisional Results
Pastrana/Gelsomino (Subaru) 2h12m42.4s
Martell/Gelsomino (Subaru) +58.2s
Olivares/Miller (Ford) +10m40.2
Coyne/Treacy (Hyundai) +13m47.4s
Plsek/Persein (Mitsubishi) +18m30.5s
Healey/Miller (Lexus) +23m52.6s
Yglesias/Nonack (Ford) +23m53.0s
Hooper/Hordijk (Lexus) +24m52.2s
Semenuk/Williams (Subaru) + 14m13.8s
Tabor/Curtis (Ford) +31m13.5s
Nykanen Puts 2WD on Top
Tight back-and-forth battle defined the Ojibwe Forests Regional Rally this year, as multiple teams from different classes fought for the podium positions.
Drama struck early on Friday as Central Championship leaders John and Michael Farrow retired on SS2 of the rally Friday afternoon, and Matthew Nykanen and Lars Anderson’s O2WD 1998 BMW 328i shot to the top of the leaderboard.
A tight battle soon formed, as Aidan and John Hicks took the lead by three seconds in their NA4WD Subaru Impreza on the next stage, only to drop 1.8 seconds back behind Nykanen and Anderson on SS6.
One more round of position swapping came as Nykanen dropped back to third on SS6 by eight seconds, only to rocket back into first with an 18.9-second lead over Hicks, which he expanded into nearly 38 seconds on the final stage of the day.
“We’re honestly just having a blast out there,” Nykanen said after SS9. “We had a few issues with our notes on stages 3/7 but we started putting the hammer down on the second loop. The car feels good. The stages were getting pretty dang torn up but I like to keep it sideways anyways so not much change there. Looking forward to the different stages tomorrow!”
Second-place Aidan and John Hicks led the NA4WD class over second-place Travis Mattonen and Anikka Nykanen, and third-place Richard and Greg Donovan at the end of Day 2.
“It’s been an enjoyable event so far!” Aidan said after SS9. “The stages today were a good mix of technical and fast with a couple of big rocks scattered throughout. The stages tomorrow will be quite quick and have a little different feel to them.”
“Our goal is to come out and attack the stages to finish the event strong! We are also glad that the crew of El Diablo are all ok!”
While it was Hicks and Nykanen trading for the lead all day, the L4WD 2015 WRX of James Randall and Andrew Rausch was also in the mix, reaching as high as second place just 6.4 seconds off of Hicks after winning the stage outright, but ended the day third, still less than 25 seconds off of second place.
Randall and Rausch led the L4WD class by a comfortable three minutes over second place Tyler Witte and Cindi Carlson in their 1996 Mitsubishi Evo. Witte and Carlson started fifth in class after the spectator stage Thursday night but moved up to second on SS2 Friday.
Third place in the class had been hotly contested, as Scott Crouch and Ryan Scott began the day there, before dropping to fifth with a four-minute time loss on SS3. Jason Cook and Maggie Tu took advantage and moved into third, but eventually were overtaken by the team of Peter Farrow and Ian Nelson on SS6.
Finally on the final stage Friday, Crouch and Scott’s day of pushing paid off and they jumped from fifth, back into third, setting themselves up to start the final day of the rally in podium contention.
In the L2WD class, the 2002 Ford Focus of Matthew and Richard Shinn started off the rally in the lead after Thursday night, but suffered a permanent retirement on SS2 from a mechanical failure, allowing the 2017 Fiesta of Brent Lucio and Stefan Trajkov to take the lead, which they still held at the end of Day 2.
Nino Ortega and Boyd Smith sat second Friday evening, and with only two cars still running in the class, only needed to finish to take the silver medal.
Saturday the action all came to a head, and right away Nykanen and Anderson set about running away with the lead the had previously held by a matter of seconds. The pair put their 328i to work, building a lead of over three minutes that let them take the win easily, becoming one of the few teams to ever win a Super Regional rally outright in a 2WD car!
“The stages today were super fun!” Nykanen said after the rally. “We started to get into a good rhythm and put down some solid times.”
“I tagged a tree with the rear quarter panel and messed it up pretty bad but managed to keep it on the road regardless. Honestly just super stoked to be up near the top guys, and somehow to pull off an overall win was pretty sweet.”
“Really looking forward to LSPR, hopefully with more than 170 horsepower!”
Nykanen and Anderson secured their second straight Super Regional podium after a third-place overall at the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood, and also their second straight Super Regional class victory, as they won the O2WD class over the 1974 Ford Capri of Mike Hurst and Randall Short, and the 2001 Ford Focus ZX3 of Drake Willis and Jacob Kohler finished second and third in O2WD respectively.
The battle for second overall still raged behind Nykanen, as Aidan and John Hicks fought back and forth with James Randall and Andrew Rausch for the silver medal on Saturday.
Photos by Erik Sils & Toua Herr
Randall overtook Hicks on SS11, Kanten Trail, putting a 14-second lead on the Hicks’ car, but after trading times during the first loop, Hicks took second back on the second running of Kanten Trail in the afternoon, and held Randall off to take second by 7.9 seconds, while Randal rounded out the overall podium.
The Hicks’ won the NA4WD class over the teams of Travis Mattonen and Anikka Nykanen, and Richard and Greg Donovan, while Randall and Rausch won over the teams of Jason Cook and Maggie Tu, and Peter Farrow and Ian Nelson, as Tyler Witte and Cindi Carlson Retired before the final loop from second.
Finally, Brent Lucio and Stefan Tajkov won the L2WD class over the only other finishers, Nino Ortega and Boyd Smith.
Regional Provisional Results
Nykanen/Lars (BMW) 2h23m33.3s
Hicks/Hicks (Subaru) +3m50.3s
Randall/Rausch (Subaru) +3m58.2s
Hurst/Short (Ford) +5m19.2s
Mattonen/Nykanen (Subaru) +7m57.8s
Donovan/Donovan (Subaru) +12m40.2s
Cook/Tu (Subaru) +18m14.3s
Lucio/Trajkov (Ford) +22m39.4s
Farrow/Nelson (Subaru) +24m28.8s
Willis/Kohler (Ford) +29m8.3s
The next round of the American Rally Association National Championship brings competitors to the Overmountain Rally in Tennessee for the first time. For more information, head to our website, or follow our Facebook and Instagram feeds.
~Mason Runkle, for the ARA