Driving Sports

It looks like a fourth consecutive national championship is in the works for Travis Pastrana and Christian Edstrom of Subaru Rally Team USA, as several of the top contenders for the title chose to skip the New England Forest Rally and concentrate on preparations for the X Games.

Both Andrew Comrie-Picard and Tanner Foust elected to focus on the X Games event, effectively conceding the national championship to SRTUSA. Pastrana entered the New England Forest Rally with a 21-point lead over Comrie-Picard.

Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino took an early lead in the Maine event, attempting to continue their momentum from a dominating performance at last month’s Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally in Pennsylvania.

Block came on strong, winning the first super-special stage and the first two stages in the forest, but then Canadians Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard in their Mitsubishi Evo X took the next two stages, with Block/Gelsomino finishing second.

Pastrana/Edstrom played a conservative game throughout the event. They won the second super-special stage and then hung around in second and third place on each stage until they won stages 10 through 12, which was enough to put them on top of the podium for the event.

“It's hard to know you've got that little more speed in reserve and not use it, but it's that little more that can get you,” Pastrana said. "We weren't the fastest here this weekend, but I'll take the win however I can get it.”

In the end, of the 11 stages actually run (Stages 3 and 4, dual runnings of the South Arm road, were canceled) Pastrana/Edstrom never finished outside of the top 3 with 4 stage wins, 1 second place, and 6 third place stages. Block/Gelsomino won 5 stages, took second on 3 more, and finished third on a single stage.

Block is always fast and will dominate every rally he runs – right up to the moment something bad happens. In this case, it was a spin and then a flat tire that took him off the top rung of the podium.

“It's extremely frustrating,” said Block at the finish. “I put myself in the right position to win and it didn't work out for us.”

Still, the strong finish in New England has moved Block/Gelsomino from 5th to 2nd in the Rally America points standings for the year.

L’Estage and Richard claimed third place overall in the event. “It's good to taste champagne again, but I really wanted to win,” L'Estage said after the victory ceremonies. “I thought this morning we had a shot at it.”

Fourth place overall went to relative newcomers William Bacon and Peter Watt. This team has been climbing the standings all year, and found themselves second on stages 9 and 10, and third-fastest on stage 12.

In Super Production, the class win belonged to Roman Pakos and co-driver Maciej Sawiki driving a 2006 Subaru WRX STI, and John Conley and Keith Rudolph took the two-wheel drive win in their 2003 Dodge Neon SRT4.