Travis Pastrana won the National but we won the regional! The father daughter team of Steve and Katie Gingras competed in the Ojibwe regional rally on August 28th and 29th. We were planning to be more aggressive and try for the class win. It was going to be tough! There were 4 other experienced teams all with higher speed factors than us. We still felt that we had a great chance. Since our 5th overall and 3rd in the non-turbo NA4WD class in the LSPR regional we have changed the trans to a 4.44 added a limited slip rear diff and finished up lots or little stuff on the car. We were ready. Friday consisted of 3 stages run twice in the same direction. After the first leg we were .3 seconds out of first and 3 seconds ahead of 3rd. At service we discovered a bad U-Joint on the drives shaft. We didn’t have a spare. Would it last? Can’t do anything about it now let’s go racing. On the stage 5 we hit a rock and bent the control arm and the steering wheel was upside down and tire was rubbing on the body. We still pressed on and after the first night we were leading the rally by 3 seconds and had a 6 second lead in class. This was going to be a fight. The good news is that our closest competitor Chuck Surdyke had a spare drive shaft and he told me to take it. The Minnesota team of Aidan and John Hicks also had a drive shaft for to use too. This is what make rally so great. Everyone just wants to race. We went back to the hotel and grilled some burgers and changed all the broken parts and prepped for the next days battle. Saturday started off with the fastest stage of the rally – Strawberry Mountain. A 12 mile high speed roller coaster ride with deep wash outs on either side of the center of the road. A great road to warm up on! (Read that as sarcastically as possible) We won the stage by 6 seconds and beat our closest class competitor by 55 seconds. The class win was looking good, but we now wanted the regional rally victory too! After the first leg on Saturday we were leading by 12 seconds over a Chase Hovinga in a Ford Fiesta ST and 1 minute over veteran Mike Hurst in a 1974 Ford Capri with a Cosworth motor. We thought Hovinga was going to get a 2 minute penalty for checking late and we thought the race was ours if we didn’t do anything stupid. So our goal was to drive quick but not take any chances. While lasted about 2 stages when we learned the penalty was actually only 20 seconds and then at it was likely to be removed. We then turned the aggressive knob up to 11. On Stage 11 we slid wide and banged a rock so hard I thought we ripped the left rear off the car or at least got a flat. The new Method wheel took the brunt of the impact and held fast. We returned to service after the 2nd leg of stages still hanging on to a slim lead of 24 seconds over Hovinga and about a minute on Hurst. Over the last 2 stages of the rally we continued to be aggressive but not take any big risks. We finished both stages without any issues. But would it be enough? The answer came fast and YES we finished 1st overall and 1st in class at the 2020 Ojibwe Regional Rally. There are more pictures, video and stories at Gingras Rally Sport on Facebook. Now I need to find a lot of spare parts!!!!! Control Arms and drive shaft!
Congratulations! Sounds like you and your team fought hard for it! I absolutely love the picture of you flying ! -Josh
Wow, congratulations! That's a great story! Just for ****s and giggles, any idea how far behind Pastrana you guys were?
Travis only beat us by 28 minutes! Here is a link to the full story. http://openpaddock.net/2020/09/07/2...jtnHpXfS14Rrf8YbYuzklRTCT5stK646SSp50OhFpwIz8 Its a good read with some really good photos. Steve
