Fresh from his dominant victory in the ARA Regional Boone Forest Rally, Conner Martell moved up to the National series for the Ojibwe Forests Rally in Minnesota where he took a podium finish this past weekend. Famous for having some of the most amazing roads in rally, Ojibwe 2024 featured 116 competition miles on quick, flowing, but sometimes rough and rutted roads with so many crests it has been likened to a roller coaster.

This didn’t phase Martell or his teammate Alex Gelsomino, Ken Block’s long time co-driver and husband to Pastrana’s co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino. Martell was behind the wheel of Vermont SportsCar’s VT22r Subaru WRX STI Open class car and was a fixture in the podium fight from start to finish along with Brandon Semenuk and Travis Pastrana, of the factory Subaru Motorsport USA entry.

Beginning in moderate conditions with passing rain, the rally opened with a single short stage where Martell finished just 1.3s behind Semenuk and just a tenth off Pastrana in the second works WRX.

The clouds parted for the second day, and while the gaps widened at the front, Martell remained well established in the top three, moving up to second behind Pastrana after a shunt for Semenuk on Stage 6. A stage later, Martell went fastest overall to claim the first National stage win of his career.

By the third day of running, Semenuk was back in action, but Martell remained in the thick of the podium fight, again going second-quickest on Stages 15, 16, and 17. A final second fastest result on the rally-ending Powerstage locked in second overall for Martell and Gelsomino, with him finishing 58.2s behind Pastrana.

“It was an event I will never forget,” said Martell. “I got my first national level stage win and my first podium. It was a dream weekend. It was great to compete against the SMUSA team as well because they showed me the pace I need to work towards. I started behind them so I was able to see the lines they were using on the stage. Those boys and cars are very fast and I’m excited to keep the momentum going into LSPR. The last day of Ojibwe I finally started to feel pretty comfortable in the car which was nice and I am continuing to learn and get better. I’m hoping we can be a little closer to Travis in the next rally and make it a good battle. Huge thank you to VSC, Yokohama and my co driver Alex. Let’s keep Hammering down!”

Martell’s next outing for VSC will be the Nitrocross season opener at Richmond Raceway in Richmond, VA on September 7-8.