Martell Shines at LSPR with Stage Wins and a Second Place Finish
Conner Martell rounded out the American Rally Association National series with a podium finish in the Lake Superior Performance Rally this past weekend.
Competing, once again, alongside co-driver Alex Gelsomino in their Subaru WRX STI, Martell won five of 17 stages outright – including a clean sweep of the final three stages – to finish just 46.8s behind six-time US rally champion Travis Pastrana.
On a warm first day, Martell began the race by tying with Pastrana on the opening stage, the 7.7 mile Al’s Playground. He finished second on the next two stages before going quickest on the first pass through Passmore South, the longest stage of the rally and the stage that would, in it’s second running, end the day of racing after heavy amounts of dust in the dark caused a cancellation of the ninth stage, a second run through Far Point.
The second day began in the same place as the first, on Al’s Playground and this time Martell was the undisputed quickest, besting Pastrana by just under a second. After a tire puncture on the 14th stage, he bounced back to top the final three stages of the rally.
The impressive finish was Martell’s second ARA National podium, after he finished 58.2s off Pastrana in August’s Ojibwe Forests Rally. In September, he won the Boone Forest Rally, an ARA regional event.
“We had an awesome rally,” said Martell. “Our speed improved so much from Ojibwe to LSPR, five stage wins and tied Travis on the first stage, so I’m very pleased with our performance. A huge shoutout to VSC for giving us a great car that made it to the finish, which is crazy because some of those stages were so gnarly towards the end.”
“I’m super-stoked with our progression and Alex me and I will be hunting for wins next year. I’m going to keep doing our homework and we’ll keep getting better.”
Congratulations VSC, Conner & Alex!
The photos are amazing, especially the forklift one XD