Sno*Drift Rally: three winners… in the space of a few hours!

The least that can be said is that the first round of the United States Championship of rallyThe ARA was eventful. Held on snow as part of the Sno*Drift Rally, it marked the start of the season for a competition that will be closely watched this year, especially as the United States will host a "Candidate Event" later in the year with a view to being included in the calendar. WRC for 2027. A major event could have taken place there, as with one special stage remaining, Lia Block was leading the overall standings. Ken Block's daughter, co-driven for the occasion by Alex Gelsomino, who will be competing in France this year with Conner Martell, was causing a sensation at the wheel of her Ford Fiesta Rally3. Suffering a timing belt failure at the very end of the rally, and then receiving road assistance, she had to abandon her dreams of victory and was subsequently disqualified for this illegal assistance. She would have been the first female driver in history to win an ARA round, and this victory would also have been the first for a Rally3 class car on American soil.

After Block, Castro was also demoted.

It was then thought that his closest rival, Argentinian Javier Castro, would take the victory in his Audi A1 MRT. By setting the third fastest time on the final stage, he had indeed secured the essentials and was thus poised to climb onto the final podium of the rally as the winner, marking his third career appearance at the event, which he had already won in 2022. But upon returning to the final service park, the South American driver's Audi also experienced mechanical problems and had to be pushed by the team mechanics to leave the service area. The duo he formed with his co-driver Ezequiel Garcia was also disqualified from the rally, and the victory was therefore awarded to Mark Piatkowski and Aris Mantopoulos in a Subaru Impreza RS. The United States has at least shown, through this somewhat crazy outcome, its ability to enforce sporting rules perhaps a little over a year before its return to the World Rally Championship calendar.

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