Category: North American Rally

News from the various stage rally organizations throughout North America.

2020 Ojibwe Forests Rally – Battle Royale Edition

Mike Shaw

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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2020 Ojibwe Forests Rally Preview

Mike Shaw

2020 Ojibwe Forests Rally Preview by Mike Shaw After the recent announcement of the cancellation of the Lake Superior Performance Rally, it’s nice to have some good news, and that news is that it’s rally week!  With the adjusted schedule due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, this weekend’s Ojibwe Forests Rally makes for round 3 of the American Rally Association national championship calendar. Being down to only 5 total rounds, every point counts and the championship battle will be hotter than ever. The Roads Well known for it’s Finland like crests…

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Rally Colorado – National Quality at a Regional Event

Mike Shaw

By Mike Shaw Rangley, CO Rally Colorado emphasizes the “Super” in it’s ARA Super Regional status. 38 teams descended on the small town of Rangely, Colorado for the annual event which was revived back in 2017 and joined the ARA calendar in 2019. Although dubbed as a regional, the event spanned two days and 130 stage miles worthy of challenging any national competitor and their machinery in the hot and high desert mountains. In addition to being part of the Western Regional Championship under ARA, Rally Colorado also doubles as…

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RallyCast Episode 86 – Rally Colorado Preview with Travis Nease and Dan Norkus

Mike Shaw

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWith Rally Colorado this weekend we wanted to get a quick preview out to all of you so you’ll know what these competitors will be facing.  We called up Travis Nease and Dan Norkus to give us an idea of what the roads are like, what they think of the hefty entry list of competitors, and what their plan of attack is being 3rd on the road in a new car.  

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Recollections of a Titan of US Rallying

Mike Shaw

Recollections of a Titan of US Rallying By Jon Scoltock The ARA series is a different place in 2020. Getting back underway at the Southern Ohio Forest Rally was awesome and it’s great to see the series growing, but it still feels like a very different championship without David Higgins. David is a force that has dominated US rallying for many years, racking up 10 titles since 2002 so, while he is absent from the series this year, it still seemed a good enough excuse to use my second article…

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Southern Ohio Heat Took its Toll on More than Just the Cars

Mike Shaw

The Southern Ohio Forest Rally had a lot of attrition, and most of it was the same we see at every rally.  New car builds with technical problems for instance, or a small off breaking a component and there is no spare.  It’s rally, and these things happen.  What was different this year though was the amount of retirements due to illness, specifically heat exhaustion, that affected drivers and co-drivers alike.

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A Fathers and Sons Rally Story

Mike Shaw

One of the special stories from this year’s Southern Ohio Forest Rally was that of Go SPEED Racing’s two entries, one made up of fathers and the other made up of their sons, and it happened almost by accident. The fathers were Robert Sanders and Boyd Smith running in the Limited 4WD Subaru WRX STI. While the sons were Ryan Sanders and Oliver Smith running in Rob’s previous car, a Limited 2WD Ford Fiesta.   Robert normally has Karen Jankowski calling the notes, but she was ill and not able…

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2020 ARA Southern Ohio Forest Rally Part 2 – The Regionals

Mike Shaw

  Photos courtesy Ben Newburn Once again, in collaboration with iHeartFast we bring you more of our Southern Ohio Forest Rally coverage!     Part 2: Regional Competition Rally is back! After months without rally due to the Covid pandemic, the American Rally Association Southern Ohio Forest Rally was the first national event since Sno*Drift way back in January. Well we’ve talked about the National competition over in part 1, so let’s jump right into the Regional competition which featured a healthy field of 29 entries. It would be a…

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2020 ARA Southern Ohio Forest Rally

Mike Shaw

In collaboration with iHeartFast, we bring you Part 1 of our 2020 Southern Ohio Forest Rally Review       Part 1: National Competition     Hello and welcome back! It’s been awhile and we’ve missed you all. Rally is back and what a welcome back it was at the American Rally Association Southern Ohio Forest Rally. Initially set to run in early June, the event was postponed until this last weekend, the middle of July, right as the heat and humidity of the midwestern summer hit its peak. With…

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