Aug. 24, 2006
Rear View
X Games Stars to Compete
in Northern Minnesota
Mention the name Travis Pastrana to nearly any male under the age of 25 and he'll tell you all about the motocross star who captured three gold medals at the recent 2006 ESPN X Games. Pastrana wowed the entire motocross world with a successful Double Back Flip to win the Best Motocross Trick competition at the X Games, held a few weeks ago in California. Pastrana also took the gold for Freestyle Motorcross. But it was a new event to the X Games that had me watching the TV on a Saturday afternoon… Rally Racing.
Motocross star Travis Pastrana holds the points lead in the Rally America championship this year. Here he is at the Sno*Drift Rally in Atlanta, Michigan, this past January. Photo by Tim Winker. |
Consequently, I wanted to see how ABC would cover the sport, especially the final competitive stage, held in a stadium and carried live. The first stages were held in the mountains not far from Los Angeles and pretty much defined who would finish where. Pastrana showed that he has as much control over an AWD rally car as he does over a motocross bike. His primary competition came from former World Rally Champion Colin McRae. Yes, the same Colin McRae that the rally video games are named after.
Pastrana took the early lead in the same Subaru that he has driven all season in the Rally America championship series. McRae started slowly, but started setting fast stage times as he got familiar with his car and the California mountain stages. By the end of the first day's competition, McRae had worked his way into a lead of less than one second over Pastrana!
The final stadium stage would decide the gold medal winner. The cars were started in reverse order of their standings, with the highest placing cars running last. Pastrana's run was quickest of all the cars that had run before, but McRae still had to make his run. At points along the course, the split time showed McRae picking up a little time on Pastrana and it looked as though the former World Champ would stand atop the podium. It all went away on the final hairpin turn when McRae rolled his Subaru! But the car landed on all four wheels, McRae put it into gear and roared across the finish line, though not quite fast enough to beat Pastrana. It was Travis' second of the three gold medals he would win that weekend.
As a result of Pastrana's involvement and the addition of rally racing to the X Games, there has been a resurgence in the sport in recent months. The first event on the Rally America schedule after the X Games is the Ojibwe Forests Rally, to be held this weekend near Bemidji, Minnesota.
The Ojibwe Rally was first run as a local event in the early 1980s. For the first several years as a Sports Car Club of America ProRally, it was held out of Grand Rapids, Minn., on the roads of the Chippewa National Forest. Rally headquarters moved to Bemidji in 1990, and the competition has been held on roads in the Paul Bunyan and White Earth State Forests south and southwest of Bemidji since then.
In addition to Pastrana, who currently has the points lead in the Rally America championship, there are about 40 teams that will race over the winding sand roads of northwestern Minnesota, roads closed to the public for the duration of the rally. Pastrana and co-driver Christian Edstrom are one of two teams that make up Subaru Rally Team USA. The other consists of Ken Block (one of the founders of DC Shoes) and Alex Gelsomino. Block is second in points, tied with Australian driver Andrew Pinker, who also drives a Subaru.
All-wheel drive Subaru WRXs and Mitsubishi Evos make up the bulk of the entries, but there are plenty of two-wheel drive cars entered in other classes, both modified and stock. Another motocross standout, Cowboy Kenny Bartram, leads the Production Class points in a VW New Beetle, but has had to withdraw from Ojibwe due to injuries suffered during motocross practice at the X Games.
There is at least one local team worth watching, that of Dave Cizmas from Solon Springs, Wisc., and Jake Himes from Duluth. They will be competing in a Mazda RX7 owned by Himes. Cizmas has been practicing on the back roads in Douglas County which are similar to those in the Paul Bunyan and White Earth forests, so is hoping to do well in the Group 5 category for two-wheel drive cars.
Spectator information can be found at the web sites below. Workers are always needed, and you can get right up close with the cars and rally teams. The Ojibwe Forsts Rally begins on Friday, August 25th, at 4:00 PM with a stage at the Bemidji Speedway. Friday's stages will be held in the Paul Bunyan State Forest near Akeley. Saturday's stages will be held in the White Earth State Forest northwest of Park Rapids.