Rally Team Spends Weekend in Land of 10,000 Lakes
After a weekend at Rally Ready Ranch in Texas, the Coastalvir giniadriving Company rally team headed to Minnesota for the Ojibwe Forest Rally. Located in the lakes region, the OFR has been a part of the rally world for the last 40 years. Though the format has changed from a time, speed, and distance rally on open roads (where the goal is to arrive exactly on time) to the closed-road competitions that most are familiar with, the lakes rally remains its own kind of challenge, one that sees drivers navigating areas where they have the potential to take their cars for a swim if they’re not careful.
Incorporating some of the most high-profile areas of the Detroit Lakes as well as the Detroit Mountain Recreation Area and the new official home of the rally, SooPass Ranch, the rally relies on volunteers for livestreaming capabilities, and unfortunately, the 2022 event did not bring enough volunteers to livestream as it has in the past.
Photo by Josh Beard.
Travis Pastrana and Rhianon Gelsomino kicked off the rally in spectacular style, leading nearly every stage until Day Three, when they crashed and were unable to recover the car and finish the race. A disappointing end to what had seemed to be a win for the team, this put the championship all but out of reach for Pastrana, with only two rally events left in the American Rally Association 2022 season.
Images courtesy of Travis Pastrana.
Texas Dave managed to stay out of the water and the woods, and despite an array of overheating issues throughout the courses, Carapetyan and co-driver John Hall managed a podium finish, third overall and first in class. This makes their first overall podium and fourth podium finish in class — all of the class podium finishes have also seen Carapetyan take first place.
The race results for the entire team were as follows:
Travis Pastrana and Rhianon Gelsomino: DNF
Texas Dave: third place overall and first in class L4WD
Tom Williams, Mike Glover, and Bucky Lasek didn’t compete.
The ARA standings haven’t been updated since the completion of Ojibwe, but the official standings can be found here. Next up, the team heads to Pennsylvania for the Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally in September.
