RallyCast Episode 104 – Dan Norkus, Santiago Iglesias, and is McKenna’s 2021 WRC Car Too Fast for ARA?

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIn this nearly two months late episode, I chatted with Danny Norkus who’s had a fantastic season so far including his first ever overall win at Colorado earlier this year with Travis Nease as well as a 2nd in class at SOFR with Chris Greenhouse. I also caught up with reigning Eastern Regional Limited 2WD class champion Santiago Iglesias right after his Southern Ohio win, and it turns out he’s got quite the regional battle on his hands with a young Patrick Gruszka who’s…

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Lake Superior Performance Rally (LSPR) Elects New Chairmen and Host City

Open Paddock has learned that the Lake Superior Performance Rally has elected Steve Gingras and Eric Carlson as their new co-chairmen. Steve told Open Paddock “It’s going to be a big challenge but we want to build an event that is going to be strong for several years.” This is yet another ‘changing of the guard’ we’ve been seeing over the past several years as a younger generation begins to run events. “Only somewhat younger” as Steve jokingly put it. This is quite the change for the former Production GT…

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2020 Ojibwe Forests Rally – Battle Royale Edition

2020 Ojibwe Forests Rally Review By Mike Shaw  and David Cosseboom Minnesota, the home to 10,000 lakes, mosquitoes as big as your head, enough poison ivy to make you itch just thinking about it and the third round of the 2020 American Rally Association National Championship series.  The Ojibwe Forests Rally is typically one of the later events in the schedule, but with the Covid shortened season of 2020, it became just the second two day rally of the year and with only two events remaining it’s importance had never been…

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RallyCast Episode 85 – The Pub Chat

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWe didn’t have any special guests this week, although we think we’re all a little bit special in our own way.  In this episode Mike, Ian, Kelsey, and Calvin chat about numerous subjects including socially distanced rallying, dealing with high temps, and what we think of one day rallies for national championship rounds. We also chat about the rest of the world starting to rally again, WRC cars running in national events, schedule changes, whether we’d like to see tarmac rallying as part of…

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RallyCast Episode 73 – Rally 2020 with Mike and Ian Followed by an Interview with ARA’s Jeremy Meyer

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIn this episode we discuss several topics, including expanding Open Paddock’s media presence, our thoughts on Colin Clark and Dirtfish joining forces, and other bits of rally news. Then at about the 1hr mark we have an interview we did a couple weeks ago with American Rally Associations head of marketing Jeremy Meyer about the 2020 season. So grab a cold one from the fridge and join us at the virtual rally pub we call the RallyCast podcast. As always, thanks for the downloads!…

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Mad Mike’s Musings – Speed Meets the Snowbank

Welcome to our new series “Mad Mike’s Musings” by Mike Halley.  For those of you that have been involved in North American rallying for a long while, you’ll recognize the name. Mike has been involved in rallying in one form or another since 1972 and can still be found at events today.  With all those years of experience, Mike has many stories to tell and opinions to share.   This Installment:  Speed Meets the Snowbank   With Sno*Drift soon to launch the 2020 season of the ARA National Championship it seems…

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RallyCast Episode 53 – The 100 Acre Wood Rally Review and an Open Paddock Reunion

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWell, we recorded this about 2 week ago and I’m just now getting around to posting it. Apologies for the delay as life kind of got in the way.  Anyway, in this episode we had a bit of an Open Paddock reunion where I’m joined by 2 former hosts from the previous version of OpenPaddock, Doug Patterson and John Olsakovsky. Doug is a well known motorsports photographer among his many other exploits, and John “The Race Fan” Olsakovsky has been to many an IndyCar…

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RallyCast Episode 45 with Doug Shepherd of ARA

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIn this episode we chatted with American Rally Association Series Manager, Doug Shepherd. ARA has now become the sanctioning body for most rallies in the US and we chatted with Doug about all the changes for 2019 including the expansion of new events, super regionals, rules changes, and what other exciting things we can look forward to this season.

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RallyCast Episode 42 with Al Dantes Jr. and Michael Hooper

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadFrom Tuesday October 30th 2018.  In this show we had our Lake Superior Performance Rally review with Al Dantes Jr. of Tower City Race Team and Michael Hooper the 2WD winner of LSPR and now the Rally America 2WD overall champion!  We chatted about the event and the crazy changing conditions, something called the Sisu Challenge, and other bits of rally news.   

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Open Paddock RallyCast Ep. 33 – Review of the 2018 Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally with William Petrow

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadThis week Ian and Mike reconnect with William Petrow of Broken Motorsports who subbed as the “Voice of ARA” at STPR this past weekend.  We review all the excitement from the Waste Management jump to the exclusion drama at the finish from one of the most challenging rallies on the American Rally Association Championship Series calendar.  We finish up with Petrow sneaking in something about “Bleeding Tarmac” …damn it Petrow!   You can follow William Petrow, Broken Motorsports, Bleeding Tarmac, and Rally Updates USA…

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